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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE MASTER'S WAY 



A STUDY IN THE 
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 



BY 
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN 

DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF RELIGION 
YALE UNIVERSITY 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO 







s« 



Copyright 1917 
By CHARLES R. BROWN 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



JAN 16 1917 
©CI. A 45365 4 



PREFACE 

This is not a " Life of Christ." It contains a series of 
studies based upon the more significant actions and utterances 
of The Master as we find them reported in the Synoptic 
Gospels. These studies are arranged not always in chrono- 
logical but in what I trust may be considered a logical order. 

These chapters were originally published in " The Congre- 
gationalism" and are reproduced here by the gracious per- 
mission of its Editors. They have been freely retouched and 
in some cases entirely rewritten. 

They are brought together here in this more convenient as 
well as more permanent form in the hope that they may serve 
the needs of those laymen who are teaching in our Sunday 
Schools or leading Bible study groups in city and college 
Christian Associations, or conducting lay services in missions 
or chapels. They were not written for the critical scholar and 
I shall not suffer disappointment if he passes by on the other 
side to find books better suited to his needs. These chapters 
are offered to those who, moving along the main travelled 
roads of human experience, would know more of " The 
Master's Way," that they too may walk in it with surer tread 
and a more resolute purpose. 

Charles Reynolds Brown. 

Yale University 
January, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I. The Coming Herald. Luke i: 5-53 

II. The Birth of John the Baptist. Luke 1: 57-80 

III. The Birth of Jesus. Luke 2: 1-20 

IV. The Star in the East. Matthew 2 
V. The Presentation in the Temple. Luke 2: 22-39 

VI. The Boy in the Temple. Luke 2: 40-52 
VII. The Ministry of John the Baptist. Mark 1: 1 
Luke 3:1-20 ....... 

VIII. The Testing of New-Found Strength. Mark 

1: 0-13; Matt. 4: 1-11 

IX. The Call of the First Disciples. Mark 1: 14-28 
Luke 5: 1-11 ...... 

X. The Ministry of Healing. Mark 1: 29-45; Matt 
3:23-35 • .... 

XI. The Paralytic Forgiven and Healed. Mark 
2: 1-12 ....... 

XII. Feasting and Fasting. Mark 2: 13-22 . 

XIII. The Visit to Nazareth. Luke 4: 16-30 

XIV. The Twelve Men. Mark 3: 7-19; Matt. 10: 1-7 
XV. The Real Sources of Happiness. Matt. 5: 3-12 

XVI. The Law of Love. Luke 6: 27-38 . 

XVII. The Old Law and the New Life. Matt. 5: 17-2 1 

XVIII. The Value of True and Kindly Speech. Matt 

5:33-37 ....... 

XIX. Hypocrisy and Sincerity^ Matt. 6: 1-18 

XX. The Use of the Sabbath. Mark 2: 23 — 3: 6 

XXI. Malignant Unbelief. Mark 3: 20-35 • 

XXII. Clean and Unclean Meats. Mark 7: 1-23 

XXIII. The Master's Estimate of John the Baptist 

Matt. 11: 1-19 

XXIV. The Tragic Death of John the Baptist. Mark 

6: 14-29 . . ... 

XXV. The Ruler's Daughter. Mark 5-' 21-43 
XXVI. The Feeding of the Five Thousand. Mark 6: 30-44 
XXVII. The Storm-Tossed Men. Mark 6: 45-56 
XXVIII. The Great Question. Mark 8:27-38 . 



PAGE 

3 
9 
15 
21 
27 
33 

39 

45 

Si 

57 

63 
68 

74 
80 

86 
92 
98 

104 
no 
116 
122 
128 

134 

140 
149 

155 
161 

167 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIX. A Troubled Sea and a Troubled Soul. Mark 

4-' 35—5:20 173 

XXX. The Christ and the Child. Mark 9: 30-41; 

10: 13-16 179 

XXXI. The Mission of the Twelve. Matt. 9: 35-38; 

10: 34-42 185 

XXXII. The Penitent Woman. Luke 7: 36-50 . . .191 

XXXIII. Judgment and Mercy. Matt. 11: 20-30 . . . 197 

XXXIV. The Blind Receive Their Sight. Mark 10: 46-52 203 
XXXV. The Life of Service. Luke 8: 1-3; 9:57-62; 10: 

38-42 209 

XXXVI. The Rank and File. Luke 10: 1-24 . . .215 

XXXVII. Light and Darkness. Luke 11: 14-26, 33-36 . . 221 

XXXVIII. The Sham and the Real. Luke 11: 37-54 . . 227 

XXXIX. Faith Destroying Fear. Luke 12: 1-12 . . 233 

XL. Christ's Table Talk. Luke 14: 7-24 . . . 239 

XLI. The Mission to the Gentiles., Mark 7: 24-30; 

Matt. 8:5-13 245 

XLII. Wanderings in Decapolis.. Mark 7:31 — 8: 10 . 251 

XLIII. The Transfiguration. Mark 9: 2-13 . . . 257 

XLIV. The Lunatic Boy. Mark 9: 14-29 .... 263 
XLV. The Right Use of the Sabbath. Luke 13: 10-17; 

14: 1-6 269 

XLVI. Lessons by the Way. Luke 13: 18-35 ■ . • 275 

XLVII. Four Straight Words. Luke 17: 1-10 . . . 281 

XLVIII. The Grateful Samaritan. Luke 17: 11-19 . . 287 

XLIX. The Parable of the Soil. Mark 4: 1-20 . . 295 

^ L. The Wheat and the Tares. Matt. 13: 24-30, 

36-43 301 

LI. The Worth of the Kingdom. Matt. 13: 44-53 . 307 

LII. The Hearer and the Doer. Luke 6: 39-49 . . 313 

LIII. The Growth of the Kingdom. Mark 4: 26-32 . 319 

LIV. The Sign and the Leaven. Mark 8: 11-26 . . 325 

LV. The Child in the Midst. Matt. 18: 1-14 . . 331 

LVI. The Good Samaritan. Luke 10: 25-37 • . . 337 

LVII. The Persistent Prayer. Luke 11: 1-13 . . 343 

LVIII. Where Your Treasure Is ! Luke 12: 13-34 . . 349 

LIX. The Fidelity of the Servant. Luke 12: 35-48 . 355 

LX. Moral Reclamation. Luke 15: 1-10 . . . 361 

LXI. The Parable of the Father. Luke 15: n-32 . 367 

LXII. Common Sense in Religion. Luke 16: 1-13 . . 373 



CONTENTS 



IX 



CHAPTER PAGE 

LXIII. The Rich Man and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31 . 379 
LXIV. The Unseen Advance of the Kingdom. Luke 

17:20-37 38s 

LXV. The Friend of Those Who Had Failed. Luke 

18: 9-15; 19: 1-10 391 

LXVI. The Parable of the Hours. Matt. 20: 1-16 . . 397 
LXVII. The Varying Use of Equal Opportunity. Luke 

19: n-27 403 

LXVIII. The Abuse of High Privilege. Matt. 21: 33-46 . 409 

LXIX. The Doom of the Unfit. Matt. 22: 1-14 . . 415 

LXX. A Day of Questions. Matt. 22: 15-22 . . . 421 

LXXI. The Need of Reserve Force. Matt. 25: 1-13 . . 427 

LXXII. What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life? 

Mark 10: 17-31 435 

LXXIII. What Does It Mean to Be Great? Mark 10: 

32-45 441 

LXXIV. Count the Cost! Luke 14:25-35 .... 447 

LXXV. The Parable of Forgiveness. Matt. 18: 15-35 . 453 

LXX VI. The Triumphal Entry. Mark 11: 1-11 . . 459 
LXX VII. "After This the Judgment." Mark 11: 12-33; 

Luke 13: 6-9 465 

LXXVIII. "Loving Is the Secret of Right Living/' Mark 

12: 28-44 47i 

LXXIX. The Judgment of the Nations. Matt. 25: 31-46 . 477 

LXXX. A Study in Values. Mark 14: 1-11 . . .483 

LXXXI. The Last Supper. Mark 14: 12-25 • • .489 

LXXXII. The Loneliness of Christ. Mark 14: 32-42 . . 495 

LXXXIII. The Man Who Might Have Been. Matt 26: 

14-25, 47-50; 27: 3-10 S01 

LXXXI V. The Arrest and Trial of Jesus. Matt. 26: 47-68 507 

LXXXV. Jesus and Peter. Mark 14:27-31, 53-54, 66-72 . 513 
LXXXVI. Jesus Before Pilate. Matt. 27: 11-31; Luke 23: 

1-25 519 

LXXXVII. Christ Crucified. Mark 15: 21-40; Luke 23: 39-43 525 

LXXXVIII. "He Is Risen." Mark 16: 1-8; Matt. 28: 11-15 . 531 

LXXXIX. The Road to Emmaus. Luke 24: 13-32 . . 537 
XC. The Great Commission. Matt. 28: 16-20; Luke 

24: 36-49 542 

XCI. "He Ascended into Heaven." Luke 24:50-53; 

Acts 1: i-ii 548 



BOOK]! 
THE ONE WHO: CAME 



THE MASTER'S WAY 

i 

THE COMING HERALD 
Luke 1 : 5-53 

It was Luke, the beloved physician, who gave us the 
fullest account of the events preceding and attending the 
birth of Christ. And the same beloved physician portrayed 
with dignity and delicacy the sacred anticipations cherished 
by the parents of John the Baptist His sense of intimate 
touch with life prompted him to offer us certain narratives 
which are peculiar to the third Gospel. The study of origins 
becomes fruitful in affording intimations of the gains to be 
expected through development. 

He seeks to show something of the setting of that life 
which Jesus soberly estimated as among the greatest born of 
women. He looks beyond "the spirit of the age," or the visible 
environment of this child who was to have such mighty signifi- 
cance as a forerunner of the Messiah. He undertakes to indi- 
cate and to estimate the potent influence for good to be found 
in certain parental desires and expectations as they found 
worthy expression in that unfolding life which thus answered 
to their hope. 

"The child is father to the man," but all those forces 
which contribute to the initial impulse and direction of the 
child's life, as it enters upon its own particular orbit, are 
father to the child. The long, dry lists of names which stand 
at the beginning of both the first and the third Gospels, under- 
taking to give the genealogy of the family of Jesus for forty 
generations, are the attempts of men who sought to indicate 
that some at least of the forces which brought that match- 

3 



4 THE MASTER'S WAY 

less life upon the scene lay securely embedded in their own 
national history. 

The scientific men tell us that it took ten thousand years 
to rub the shaggy hair off the beast and produce the fair, clean 
skin of the human. They say that it took another ten thou- 
sand years to teach this higher form of life to stand erect 
in place of going on all fours with the ape, the tiger and the 
hog. We represent the outcome of that age-long conflict be- 
tween the human and the brutal. The forces which help to 
make us what we are reach back through all those long dark 
periods of struggle. 

And we in turn are casting whatever measure of aspira- 
tion and of high resolve we may be able to show, into the 
same patient process of advance. The spiritual forces which 
we help to set in motion are conditioning the lives of children 
yet to be born unto the third and fourth generations of those 
who love and of those who hate Him ! Yea, the forces which 
have to do with the life of the spirit find expression in the 
determination of results even unto the thirtieth and the fortieth 
generation. 

The beginnings of a human soul, how full of mysterious 
significance ! How intricate are the varied influences which 
cause that fresh young life to show unusual capacity, it may 
be for good, or, it may be, alas, for evil ! If the launching of 
a ship destined to sail the high seas in all weathers and to do 
business in great waters is an occasion fraught with deep 
solemnity to those who know the perils of the deep and the 
far-reaching significance of that world-wide traffic to which 
the great vessel is pledged, how much more the launching 
of a life facing upon an unending future and capable of carry- 
ing that priceless cargo of character which may link it to 
the Most High. We can understand how this spiritually- 
minded physician conversant with the hidden meanings and 



THE ONE WHO CAME 5 

potencies of life dwelt with reverent interest on the birth of 
one who should in splendid fashion "prepare the way of the 
Lord." 

The beloved physician shows an interest in the now 
much mooted question of spiritual heredity. We find hard 
and fast lines drawn by some of the students of this mystery 
between "native" and "acquired" characteristics. But men of 
sense and wide observation will be loth to surrender their 
faith in the handing on of moral tendencies from father to 
son quite independently of the influence which may justly be 
attributed to similar environment. The physical characteristics 
which are steadily reappearing in certain human stocks seem 
but the outward and visible signs of certain inward and spir- 
itual inclinations which are being handed on perpetually in a 
noble or an ignoble line of succession. 

"Blood tells" in those horses which are deemed worthy 
to take part in the "track events," and blood tells in the dogs 
which "make" the dog show. Blood tells in the human beings 
who come up as candidates for college honors or for the more 
substantial recognition and rewards which belong to mature 
life. Whatever blessings and benefits may come with favor- 
ing environment and thorough training, it is an inestimable 
privilege to be well born the first time! The "new birth" in 
such case secures a better start for the life which is to run 
the race for an incorruptible crown. 

The picture of these two parents, Zacharias and Elisa- 
beth, in the presence of the promised fulfillment of their dear- 
est hopes, has all the touches of reality. The reluctant faith 
of the father in the face of a great hope ; the more ready and 
grateful faith of the mother; the deep sense of something 
august and sacred in the hearts of both — how true to life is all 
this! "The people waited for Zacharias and marveled that 
he tarried so long in the temple." When he made bold to 



6 THE MASTER'S ^WAY 

accept this new and deeper meaning of life which fatherhood 
involved, he lingered in the place of reverence and aspiration 
as best suited to his own mood of awe and devotion. 

The sense of the responsible and unspeakably precious 
relation he would sustain to that young soul made any sort 
of immediate utterance seem distasteful and impossible. 
"When he came out he could not speak unto them : and they 
perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple." It stands 
as a quiet rebuke to the flippant and frivolous spirit in which 
the fact of parenthood is sometimes discussed by those who 
have never seen a vision of its deeper meaning in the temple. 

The old-fashioned office provided for the gratitude of the 
mother in the Book of Common Prayer, now so largely fallen 
into disuse; the solemn dedication of the life of the child to 
God and the recognition of his rights and interest in this 
new life which find fitting expression in the sacrament of 
baptism; the whole acceptance of the parental and the filial 
attitudes as being fundamental to the life of God and man; 
and the sacred undertaking to make each home an expression 
of the will and method of him from whom the whole family 
in heaven and on earth is named — all these have to do with the 
placing of a just emphasis upon the spiritual meaning and 
value of those experiences which are brought before us in this 
passage. 

If our ears were less dull and were not drummed into 
unresponsiveness by the noise of the life material, the father 
and the mother in any home might in the hour of their great 
joy hear the same august message from on high. "I am 
Gabriel that stand in the presence of God. I am sent to 
speak unto thee and shew thee these glad tidings." And if the 
initial responsibility of parentage were accepted in that high 
mood and in the enjoyment of that divine co-operation for the 
nurture of the newborn child, there would be less heartache 






THE ONE WHO CAME 7 

in store for the parents in the years that lie ahead. Their 
ears also might hear the assuring words, "Thou shalt have 
joy and gladness and many shall rejoice at his birth." 

The rights of the child have been receiving clearer recog- 
nition at the hands of the civilized nations in the framing 
of their laws. The interests of the immature himself incapa- 
ble of self -protection are the more jealously guarded by society 
as a whole in the expression of its will through duly enacted 
statutes. This wise care reaches back of the hour of birth 
and stretches its protecting scepter over the unborn child. 

The further recognition of the right of every life to be 
well born, to have an honest start rather than a handicap heavy 
enough to be prohibitive of all high attainment, is on the way. 
It has already found expression in widely prevalent sentiment 
upon this question. Where any measure of intelligence and 
conscience is possessed by the diseased, they shrink from 
making their sorry bequest to other lives which shall be robbed 
at the start of a normal equipment. 

The iniquity of child labor becomes the more apparent 
when studied in the light of its bearing upon racial develop- 
ment. When young girls of fourteen and sixteen are em- 
ployed in factories where for twenty-six days in the month 
they are compelled to stand at their work ten hours a day, 
they find themselves ill-fitted for the joys and responsibilities 
of mature womanhood. When young women in department 
stores stand all day behind the counter with no seats provided 
for the intervals of leisure between the coming and going of 
customers, the ugly wages of such commercial cruelty are paid 
not by the employing firm but by the little lives in later years 
who find themselves handicapped from the start. 

This recognition of the right of the child to be well born 
may yet find still more resolute expression in laws which for- 
bid the marriage of the defective and the delinquent where 



8 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the abnormality passes a certain limit. It is a question to be 
decided not by majority vote in public assemblies nor by the 
passing of hastily framed resolutions by those who are not 
competent to judge. We shall need to turn to those physicians 
at once wise and beloved, possessed like this doctor of old 
of professional skill and of spiritual insight, to learn the 
courses of action which are best calculated to increase the 
number of lives destined in their maturity to "prepare 
the way of the Lord." 



II 

THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
Luke i : 57-80 

"There was a man sent from God whose name was John." 
There have been many such. John the Baptist and John the 
Apostle stand at the head of a goodly succession. John 
Chrysostom, the great preacher of righteousness in the Eastern 
Church, and John Wy cliff e, the Morning Star of the Ref- 
ormation in the Western Church, were men sent from God 
John Calvin and John Knox, John Milton and John Wesley, 
John Robinson at Scrooby and John Hall on Manhattan Island 
were all sent from God to bear witness to the Light. Time 
would fail me to tell of all the men of faith whose names were 
John. 

Neither current custom nor the counsel of friends nor the 
family tradition guided the parents in bestowing this name 
upon their child. It was done in obedience to one of those 
mysterious impulses which the Hebrews simply and accu- 
rately called "the word of the Lord." The narrator loves to* 
think that even in these less important details the devout par- 
ents were providentially guided in the care and culture of this 
child who should be called "the prophet of the Highest" and be 
competent "to guide the feet of many in the way of peace." 

The nature of this John was stern and uncompromising. 
He laid his ax at the root of the tree. He sought by his win- 
nowing fan to separate the worthless chaff for the burning 
from the wholesome wheat to be gathered into the garner. 
Yet this rigorous action was dictated by love. "The goodness 

9 



10 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and the severity of God" have no quarrel. In certain situa- 
tions goodness must be severe in order to be good. The un- 
sparing severity of the surgeon cutting out some malignant 
growth which has become a menace stands as the highest ex- 
pression of goodness. The radical opposition of John the 
Baptist to the sham religion of his day and to all that op- 
posed the beneficent purpose of the Messiah whose forerunner 
he was, became a genuine kindness to the important interests 
at stake. 

The unusual circumstances surrounding his birth por- 
trayed in an earlier portion of this chapter had aroused ex- 
pectation. They were esteemed prophetic intimations of com- 
ing greatness. "What manner of child shall this be?" men 
were saying as they saw the babe in the arms of his mother. 

There were mysterious forces at work in his life which 
made it impossible for any definite answer to be given to this 
query. "The hand of the Lord was with him," the author 
says. "He was filled with the Holy Spirit" from the very 
beginning. In the presence of such energies at work and un- 
impeded by a refractory will we can readily believe that this 
life would be destined to wield a mighty significance in Chris- 
tian history. 

"W T hat manner of child shall this be?" No one knew. 
No one ever knows the unrealized possibilities of any child's 
life. If some woman of means should entrust to you her 
jewels, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, you would know instantly, 
when once she had stated to you their monetary value, how 
much poorer she would be and how much poorer the world 
would be, were you to drop them in the bay. But if she 
should entrust to you for an hour as a minister of Christ, as 
a teacher in the Sunday school, as an associate or an em- 
ployer, her boy, then you would find yourself utterly unable 



THE ONE WHO CAME 11 

to state how much poorer she would be, or how much poorer 
the world would be should you fail to do all that lies within 
your power to have that boy fulfill the highest purpose of his 
being. 

What manner of child shall this be, if as a result of your 
influence and hers he becomes a Christian and invests his un- 
folding energies in the service of the Highest? No one can 
possibly predict the outcome. In the presence of the ever- 
lasting mystery of expanding and unfolding life, where the 
hand of the Lord is upon it for good, we stand bewildered. It 
is both stimulating and sobering to thus deal with interests 
where the full values cannot be rated immediately and given 
definite statement. 

We have in this passage one of those early Christian 
hymns which have been collected in the great liturgies of the 
Christian Church. In the Book of Common Prayer we find 
the "Benedictus" the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc Dimittis" 
with other finished expressions of the worship of that earlier 
time. How many hearts have been called to the high mood 
of thanksgiving in those noble words of the "Benedictus!" 
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and 
redeemed his people. He hath raised up an horn of salva- 
tion for us in the house of his servant David ... to give light 
to them that sit in darkness and to guide our feet into the way 
of peace !" 

How many modest lives witnessing the expansion of their 
humble resources under the divine blessing as they were yielded 
in service, have found their gratitude voiced for them in the 
words of the "Magnificat!" "My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
for he that is mighty hath done to me great things. He hath 
shewed strength with his arm; he hath put down the mighty 
from their seats and exalted them of low degree. ,, 

How many devout souls having fought a good fight and 



12 THE MASTER'S WAY 

-lied their course, having seen the realization of their 
dearest hopes, have whispered at the last these words of "Nunc 
Dimittis!" "Now let thy servant depart in peace for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation.'' The great Christian hymns 
of the ages, ancient and modern, gather up the best that has 
been seen and felt by the resolute souls who have joyously 
ascended up into heaven and found God there, who have made 
their bed in the lowest depths of sorrow and have found him 
there. 

The "Benedictus" was a great, brave anticipation of spir- 
itual results to be achieved in the future under the consecrated 
leadership of John the Baptist and in yet fuller measure 
through the One for whose coming he paved the way. But 
so confident is the singer in his prophetic mood regarding the 
sure results to be attained that he speaks of them as accom- 
plished facts. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he 
hath visited and redeemed his people." His lofty ideals were 
grounded in that confidence of faith which at once gives sub- 
stance to things hoped for, becoming immediately the credible 
evidence of things not seen. 

He links up the past and the present in such a way as to 
bring out forcibly the historical continuity of that spiritual ad- 
vance and to furnish reliable warrant for his high hopes. The 
"horn of salvation" was to be raised up in the house and from 
lineage of David, iel ever had. The 

splendid moral f :iit would be in line with the hopes 

expressed "by the mouth of the holy prop! hich have been 

since the world began." The mercies performed would be 
those promised to the fathers in the terms of an ancient and 
holy covenant. The spiritual results would be the accomp'. 
ment of an oath which in the dim ages of the past "the Lord 
had sworn to their father Abraham." 



THE ONE WHO CAME 13 

The seed wheat of future harvests is to be found in the 
moral gains already made. The tests which have been made as 
men have been proving many things have made plain certain 
principles which abide — we shall not need to perform these ex- 
periments again. And we shall best ground our expectations 
for further advance as we rest them upon those enduring les- 
sons which the ages have taught us by such profound experi- 
ences as are indicated in these splendid hymns of faith. 

The work to which John was called, like the task of the 
man in the "secondary school," was of necessity preparatory. 
"Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his 
ways." It is the high office of many a life to plant trees whose 
fruit will not be eaten by the one who sets the roots in place. 
In every field of human effort patient sowers of seed are at 
work knowing that the glorious harvest will be reaped by other 
hands. So be it! There is a glory in laying foundations as 
well as in placing capstones. 

It is only fair that each generation should take its turn 
in filling the role of John the Baptist. Other men have labored 
and we have entered into their labors. We shall only square 
the account as we lay foundations broad and sure on which 
our successors may build their finer achievements. 

Count it all joy if you may in some situation the most 
obscure, perhaps, do a bit of honest, vital work and set it in 
the great process faced toward moral advance. The abiding 
forces of spiritual conservation will take it up and utilize it for 
that ultimate fulfillment which lies as yet, even for the boldest 
seer, far below the horizon. 

"The child grew and waxed strong and was in the deserts 
till the day of his showing." The grim, meager, lonely charac- 
ter of the desert where stone and sand and barren shrub alone 
contend for attention with the blue sky and the burning sun, 



14 THE MASTER'S WAY 

all had their counterpart in the moral development of that 
rugged nature which in the days of his strength would come 
as a voice crying in the wilderness, ''Prepare ye the way of 
the Lord, make his paths straight." 



Ill 

THE BIRTH OF JESUS 
Luke 2: 1-20 

"Behold I bring you good tidings!" The familiar words 
first fell on the listening ears of shepherds keeping watch over 
their flocks by night. They were standing guard over the help- 
less sheep, protecting them from the wolves and jackals, from 
the thieves and robbers which lurked among those Judean hills. 
Simple outdoor men they were, unused to theological subtle- 
ties ! Plain minds they had, accustomed to deal with concrete 
realities ! And to these men was made known the birth of the 
Messiah. 

It was not the first time nor the last that splendid truths 
have been hidden from the wise and prudent by the very con- 
fidence of those men in their own powers of discernment and 
revealed to men of childlike habit of thought willing to be 
taught and led. The gravest charge which can be laid at the 
door of the learned Pharisees is that the greatest event in the 
moral history of the world took place under their very eyes 
and they did not see it. The Scribes and Pharisees were deaf 
to the songs in the air heard by the listening shepherds. 

"Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing 
which is come to pass." The shepherds for many years had 
been leading their flocks in green pastures and by still waters. 
They may be competent to lead our minds into the presence 
and the meaning of this event which has altered the moral 
history of the race ! 

How strange that the birth of a child should change the 
calendars of the world ! The Hebrews had been dating their 

15 



16 THE MASTER'S WAY 

calendar from what they supposed to have been the period of 
the Creation. The Romans reckoned their time from the 
founding of the city on the seven hills. The Greeks reckoned 
their time from the first Olympic Games. But today if you 
meet a Hebrew or an Italian or a Greek in any part of the 
world and ask him what year it is, he will reply instantly, 
"Nineteen hundred and seventeen !" It is that long since the 
child was born in Bethlehem of Judea. 

The child grown to be a man, exalted to be a Saviour, has 
so drawn the attention of mankind to himself, so gathered the 
forces of history into his own hands, so taken the moral gov- 
ernment of the world upon his shoulder, as to make his birth- 
day the fixed point from which England and America, France 
and Italy, Russia and Germany and all the more powerful 
nations of earth, reckon their time. 

You think it is wonderful that wise men saw a strange star 
in the east, that shepherds heard songs in the air, that Luke, 
a Gentile physician, and Matthew, a Hebrew tax collector, 
recorded extraordinary conditions surrounding the birth of 
this child ! These things are wonderful indeed, but none of 
them so wonderful as the solid fact that a child born in pov- 
erty and obscurity, in an out-of-the-way village in insignificant 
Palestine, should have thus impressed his birthday on the 
leading nations of the earth. 

When Jesus reached his maturity and stood up to give his 
first public address, he said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me because he hath anointed me to preach the acceptable year 
of the Lord." A year of the Lord it was indeed ! A year of 
the Lord it has remained. And when we celebrated this birth- 
day last December we wrote it, "December 25th, 1916, in the 
year of our Lord" ! 

Whatever else may be uncertain this is sure. However we 
may be confused touching the place of Christ in the ordinary 



THE ONE WHO CAME 17 

categories of human existence, here is that which is undeniable. 
Here stands the great fact of Christ, born into the world, 
steadily building himself into its intricate life, giving direc- 
tion to the flow of its best thought, making his principles and 
methods the head of the corner, changing the calendars and 
changing the ideals of men so that we measure them according 
to their distance from him! Let us indeed go to Bethlehem 
and see this thing which is come to pass ! 

"Born this day in the city of David !" He was not a celes- 
tial being descending out of the clouds, detached, unrelated, 
unorganized with this human life of ours. He was born of a 
woman. He sprang from the house and lineage of David. If 
the human and the divine were set over against each other in 
irreconcilable difference then such a statement might bring 
permanent confusion. But the gospel proclaims the fact that 
between the human and the divine there exists a necessary and 
abiding kinship like that between the branch and the vine, the 
parent and the child. It is possible, therefore, that one born 
into our human needs and duties, into our human sorrows and 
delights should be at once Son of God and Son of Man. 

The fact of the incarnation is the revelation in time and at 
one place of a truth universal and abiding. The tabernacle of 
God in the last analysis is not in the skies — "the tabernacle of 
God is with men," and he dwells with them. There was born 
to us in a certain family and in a certain village, into a certain 
system of instruction, into a certain form of industry, into a 
certain stage of the world's political and religious unfolding, 
a fresh expression of the nearness and the helpfulness of the 
Infinite Spirit. There was born to us in that city of David, a 
Saviour who is Christ the Lord. 

The gift of Christ to be the Saviour of men is commonly 
regarded as God's supreme appeal to the conscience of the 
race. "Last of all he sent his Son, saying, They will reverence 



18 THE MASTER'S WAY 

my son." The claim does not rest on an arbitrary assertion. 
Who can stand beside him? Bring forward a more searching 
or helpful message than that found in his gospel and every 
minister in Christendom will declare it to his people. Bring 
a profounder source of motive and stimulus for right living 
than the one uncovered in his word and we will gladly use it in 
place of the accepted evangel. Bring something better to hold 
before the hearts of sorrow or the lives that have suffered 
moral defeat and we shall utilize it. But the offer of spiritual 
help superior to that found in the Christ is not forthcoming. 
Last of all and best of all, he sent his Son ! 

"To whom shall we go?" — the question is imperative. 
Somewhere we must go for our thought of God, for a final 
philosophy of life, for some sufficing source of spiritual energy 
to renew our depleted strength. We want the best — "To 
whom shall we go ?" Let us go with the shepherds to Bethle- 
hem and there in the face of Jesus Christ as his life matures 
we shall discern the character and disposition of the Eternal 
Father. 

There in the matchless teaching of this Christ, when his lips 
shall have shaped themselves to our mode of speech, we shall 
hear the true philosophy of human existence. There in vital 
fellowship with him who was born in the city of David we 
shall gain renewal for all the springs of action. In that 
Saviour who is Christ the Lord, we discover an abiding source 
of moral help. Let us go to Bethlehem and meditate upon 
the things which have come to pass since that memorable 
night. We shall find ourselves moved to sing with fresh 
meaning, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and 
good will toward men." 

"They came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the 
babe lying in a manger." Rough and rude were the physical 
surroundings. Joseph and Mary were poor. Even on that 



THE ONE WHO CAME 19 

crucial night no better accommodation could they afford. The 
eyes of Luke the physician, accustomed to witness the stress 
of human existence, noted the pathetic details of the situation. 
In "the gospel of the Son of Man" we find the touches which 
most nearly relate this august life to all our plainest needs 
and sorest trials. 

But the life which must borrow its glory from its surround- 
ings shows the saddest poverty. The houses we live in, the 
chairs we sit upon, the clothes we wear are minor matters. 
Jesus borrowed nothing from his surroundings. He needed 
nothing. He was cradled in a manger. He was reared in the 
meagerness of little Nazareth, feeling the privations of a car- 
penter's home. He knew months of self-denial when he had 
not where to lay his head. He was destined to die not in a 
bed but on a cross and his body would be laid in a borrowed 
tomb. His rude birthplace was prophetic of the whole setting 
which would be given to his life. 

How little it mattered ! The life is more than meat. The 
body is more than raiment. And the soul within is a thou- 
sandfold more than either. The inner worth and the power 
to serve in any life become the true measure of its glory all 
apart from the accidents of its outer wrapping. The coarse 
appraisement made by current standards of success and well- 
being seem weak and mean in the presence of values which 
outlast and outshine the stars. 

"The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for 
the things which they had seen and heard." They went back 
to the same old life of hardship and anxiety, but they went 
now in a new mood. The old earth is a different place when 
once it is seen to have a sky above it. The atmosphere of the 
field or of the shop is changed when once it has been filled 
with the songs of the angels. The Christmas message infuses 
new meaning and beauty into the old life of toil. 



20 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Have you never walked at night when the stars seemed 
nearer than the tree-tops, when to your own eyes the sky was 
aglow with an unwonted radiance? Have you never known 
some high hour when a heavenly host seemed to sweep into 
your vision? Have you never heard songs in the air which 
fell from no human lips? If you have never known such mo- 
ments then, alas, for the meagerness of your inner life ! But 
if you have entered upon these higher moods, your own heart 
will be the best interpreter of these stories of the Nativity. 



IV 

THE STAR IN THE EAST 

Matthew 2 

"We have seen his star in the East!" The initial impulse 
of every great religion has come not from the bustling, prac- 
tical, inventive West but from the meditating and contemplative 
East. There is Judaism ! In every synagogue in Europe and 
America the Rabbi stands and points eastward to the valley 
of the Euphrates. There he sees Abraham, the founder of 
his faith, following the leading of the divine spirit, and going 
out from his idolatrous surroundings to rear his family in the 
worship of one God. The cradle of Judaism was in the East. 

There are the Buddhists ! Theirs has been a missionary 
faith. It has spread from land to land. But in the Buddhist 
temples of Colombo and of Singapore, of Lhasa and of Tokyo 
the uniform habit is to point back to that sacred seat under 
the Bo-tree where Gautama sat for six years silent, receptive, 
prayerful, until the illumination came. The cradle of 
Buddhism was in the far East. 

There are the Moslems, powerful, aggressive, fanatical in 
their allegiance to Islam! Whether you find them under the 
Southern Cross or on the high tablelands in Thibet or along 
the Bosphorus they are faced toward Arabia where Moham- 
med made his flight from Mecca to Medina, where the Koran 
was written to teach men, "There is no God but Allah, and 
Mohammed is his prophet." The cradle of Islam was in the 
East. 

And our own Christian faith as well ! It has won its great- 
est victories, it has come to its fullest vigor and maturity in 

21 



22 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Europe and America, but this is not its native soil. The great 
Christian cathedrals of Europe are built always with the altar 
end to the east that worshipers may habitually face toward the 
quarter whence light has come. It is an added testimony in 
stone, mute but enduring, as to the birthplace of our faith. 

Jesus was an Oriental. His flowing robes, his style of 
speech, his manner of life, all belong to the East. When we 
read therefore of a mysterious star seen by wise men in the 
East it matches the rest. The self-perpetuating missionary 
religions have all come from the East. 

The wise men came from the East with this fundamental 
inquiry on their lips, "Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews?" The Jews were the spiritual leaders of the race and 
"the King of the Jews" might well be king of the whole moral 
realm. It was a fundamental inquiry which they brought. 
Where in this visible universe, where in recorded history has 
the Almighty given that tangible expression of himself before 
which wise men may bow in final allegiance? 

This fundamental question was first asked by men of in- 
sight and judgment — wise men they were. It was asked by 
men of moral earnestness — it was in no spirit of idle curiosity 
that they made this journey across the sands in search of the 
Coining One. It was asked by resolute men willing to give 
of their best when they found the object of their quest. When 
they saw the One whom they sought they opened their trea- 
sures and laid at his feet gold, frankincense and myrrh, the 
value, the beauty and the fragrance of their love. They asked 
their question as wise, earnest, generous men, and they found 
their answer in the child born in Bethlehem of Judea. 

The wise men undertook their quest in dim uncertain star- 
light. They had some intimation that a Messiah would come. 
Then they learned the name of his country — he was to be born 
"King of the Jews." They followed up this clew until by 



THE ONE WHO CAME 23 

diligent, persistent search they knew the name of the town — 
it was Bethlehem in Judea. At last they knelt before the One 
they sought and rose up ennobled and enriched. The man 
who takes his own uncertain vision of the Eternal Goodness, 
of the divine purpose for him, of the privileges he might enjoy 
at the hands of spiritual reality and follows on, will find at 
last that which satisfies the utmost demand of reason and 
aspiration. 

It was a time of expectancy at Jerusalem also. The stu- 
dents of Scripture searching the ancient prophets believed 
that some glorious fulfillment was at hand. To the listening 
ears and sensitive hearts of shepherds keeping watch over 
their flocks, the air became vocal with mysterious meaning. 
Devout saints like Simeon and Anna were waiting for the 
consolation of Israel. 

We find this spirit communicated to those who were morally 
careless, even as the spirit of Christmas finds its way into 
many a profane place. "Herod the king was troubled" lest 
this Coming One might dispute with him the right to reign. 
He summoned the chief priests and demanded of them where 
the Messiah should be born. He had an interview with the 
wise men inquiring anxiously as to the meaning of the strange 
portent in the sky. Finally he said, insincerely, but voicing 
the dominant mood at Jerusalem, "Search diligently for the 
young child and when ye have found him, bring me word, 
that I may come and worship him also." 

They found him in the manger of a stable ! The people of 
that generation found him ever amid the lowliest surround- 
ings. He was cradled in the modest home of one who wrought 
with saw and plane. He was reared in a community so un- 
promising that it had become a proverb, "Out of Galilee ariseth 
no prophet." He was so cramped in resource that for months 
he had no place to lay his head. He was scorned by the titled 



24 THE MASTER'S WAV 

and the powerful in church and state. He was compelled to 
choose his intimates from the peasants, the fishermen and the 
farmers of that region. He was doomed to die upon a cross 
between two thieves. In his whole life the advantage of out- 
ward circumstances was reduced to its lowest terms. 

But greatness in the realm where he was born king does 
not lie in externals. The place of one's birth, the elegance 
or the simplicity of one's surroundings, the length of one's 
bank account, the petty social distinctions so vital to many 
minds — all these are minor matters. Real greatness is mea- 
sured in terms of personality. The power to see and to say, 
the ability to feel and to aspire, the strength to act and to 
serve, this alone makes a life great. 

There are many who search diligently for him among those 
ecclesiastical splendors which have come in his name- They 
feel that if they can but enter the stateliest, costliest cathedral 
it has entered into the heart of man to build; if they can listen 
to loud swelling anthems and Te Deums where Christ's name 
is enshrined; if they can inhale the fragrance of those clouds 
of incense which rise before him from many altars; if they 
can participate in the gorgeous ceremonial of the Christian 
Church in its most ornate form, they will find the One who 
will bring peace to their souls. 

But the hint given us in those original lowly surroundings 
where the wise men found him is not to be disregarded. We 
shall come nearer to the energy of his holy will, to the benefi- 
cence of his gracious purpose, to the healing touch of his 
boundless compassion, if we look for him in quite another 
quarter. Let memory and moral imagination fill in the requi- 
site material to complete this ellipsis, "Inasmuch . . . unto 
Me!'' When you have done that you will know where to 
search for him. 

In those impulses of fidelity, devotion, tenderness which 



THE ONE WHO CAME 25 

make the intimacies of domestic life sweet and sacred ; in those 
integrities, heroisms, humane considerations which redeem com- 
mercial and industrial life from its sordidness ; in that splendid 
adherence to principle and that subordination of private inter- 
est to the public good which lifts political life to its rightful 
dignity; in those lovely, thoughtful, affectionate outgoings of 
kindliness which are aiding the poor, the needy, the struggling 
to a more equitable share in the good things of God — in all 
these Christ is born anew to be king over the lives of men. 
In all these Christ dwells. If we "search diligently" we shall 
there find him. 

Search diligently and you will find Christ at the head of the 
best thought, the purest desire, the noblest resolve for the 
betterment of the race ! Find that and you find him. Cast in 
your lot with that and you are following him. Make intelligent 
consecration of your best powers to the lines of effort pro- 
posed by the best thought, the purest desire, the noblest re- 
solve discoverable in Christian society and you lay at his feet 
your gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

How it dignifies and enriches all our homely tasks to thus 
relate them to spiritual purpose ! The man with the hoe intent 
upon doing a lowly but necessary bit of work that the race 
may be fed ; the woman with the dust cloth intent upon order, 
cleanliness and sound health for her loved ones; the mer- 
chant with a desk full of tiresome orders, invoices, bills, re- 
solved to make his business a social utility in meeting the needs 
of mankind; the teacher harassed and wearied by thoughtless 
and restless, stubborn and stupid immaturity, but determined 
to make some contribution to a better type of personality in 
all those urchins ; the charity worker, puzzled, baffled and dis- 
heartened oftentimes but unflagging in the desire to bring 
those defective and delinquent lives up to some worthier state ! 

"Drudgery," you say? It is just that! But when we realize 



26 THE MASTER'S WAY 

that it all shades off from the seen and temporal into that 
which is unseen and eternal ; when we realize that a cup of 
cold water given in the right mood is not without its reward 
in spiritual accomplishment ; when we realize that diligent 
search will enable us to find him and the outworking of his 
holy purpose in all this unselfish fidelity to duty, then we shall 
be ready to return from Bethlehem with that original Christ- 
mas congregation ''glorifying and praising God" for the things 
we have seen and heard and felt. 



V 

THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE 
Luke 2: 22-29 

How careful the attention given to that ceremonial which 
formed the setting of a religious life in the time of Christ ! 
Jesus was duly presented in the Temple. He suffered the 
Jewish rite of initiation. His mother fulfilled the requirements 
of the Hebrew ritual touching motherhood. When he attained 
his maturity the Master was baptized by his servant in the 
River Jordan. And to a government whose limitations he 
beheld with clear eyes, Jesus nevertheless paid his tribute 
money. 

Thus it becometh the perfect life to fulfill all righteousness. 
Custom is grounded as a rule in some measure of reason and 
justice or it would not have become custom. The well-worn 
path is well worn because it has served the needs of many. 
And in all the liberty of his own matchless spirit Christ would 
still bear witness to the value of those ceremonies which aid 
in clothing the daily round with sacred meaning. 

"Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. Render to 
all their dues : tribute to whom tribute is due : custom to whom 
custom: fear to whom fear: honor to whom honor. Owe no 
man anything but to love one another." The full measure of 
liberty which the conscientious Christian, having escaped the 
bondage of the law, claims for himself does not seek expres- 
sion in the avoidance of duty, but in a finer form of obedience 
to the legitimate demands of "all righteousness. " 

It is significant that the intimation of the approach of the 
infant Messiah came to the devout Simeon and Anna as they 

27 



28 THE MASTER'S WAY 

waited in the Temple. The satisfying vision of spiritual reality 
commonly shapes itself with reference to each man's dominant 
interest. The wise men in the East, students of the stars, 
were led to Bethlehem by what they saw in the sky. The 
music-loving shepherds as outdoor men heard songs in the air 
while they watched their flocks by night. The thirsty woman 
at the well in Samaria received gladly an offer of spiritual 
satisfaction pictured as "living water." The Galilean fisher- 
men saw the venture and the mystery of Christian service 
portrayed in that summons to become "fishers of men." And 
here the two aged saints whose main interest was devotion, 
lingering for worship in the sacred precincts of the Temple, 
receive the glad tidings that the Messiah is being presented 
before the Lord. 

"Then Simeon took him up in his arms and blessed God." 
It was the meeting of age and of infancy. The ripened saint 
had been waiting for the consolation of Israel and now when 
the time of his departure is at hand he is permitted to see the 
desire of the nations. The long periods of anticipation and 
preparation for "the Coming One" here meet and touch the 
advancing ages of fulfillment as they move by the orders of 
One who is to reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. 

What a picture, when the aged man lifted the young babe 
and gave thanks to God ! "The lingering past holds the new 
born future in its arms singing" — and singing not in somber, 
melancholy regret, but in glad and prophetic anticipation. His 
face is toward the morning as he holds the child aloft and sees 
the first gleams of a light that will lighten the Gentiles and 
become the glory of his people Israel. 

He is to be "set for the fall and rising again of many in 
Israel." The effect of his truth will be to put down some of 
the mighty from their seats and to exalt them of low degree. 
By his truer appraisement the publican standing afar off con- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 29 

fessing his unworthiness will go down to his house approved 
while the self-confident and self-satisfied Pharisee will come 
in for lasting condemnation. The rough men of toil will be- 
come apostles of light while the privileged sons of the king- 
dom will be cast into outer darkness. In the moral rearrange- 
ments under the eye of one who looks not on the outward 
appearance but on the heart the first will find himself last and 
the last be promoted to be first. 

Under his benign influence "the thoughts of many hearts 
may be revealed." Jesus interprets each life to itself. He 
holds before every soul a vision of its own unrealized possi- 
bilities. "Come and see a man who told me all the things that 
ever I did," cried the woman of Samaria. She did not mean 
that the Master had recounted all the sorry performances of 
her disgraceful past. She meant that he had revealed to her 
an unsuspected capacity in her own guilty life for renewal 
and for growth in goodness which she had regarded as for- 
feited forever. The inspiring discovery of every life to itself 
and the awakening of impulse for that high quest of self- 
realization is one of the splendid offices of the Saviour. 

It was because Simeon and Anna lingered in the Temple 
that this vision of the coming Messiah was vouchsafed to 
them. The just and devout who wait for the consolation of 
Israel are found in the place and in the mood where the mani- 
festations of the divine become natural and inevitable. The 
prayerful heart of the old man thrilled at the approach of the 
child. His own aspirations were attuned to the fundamental 
purposes which underlay the coming of the Messiah. When 
a full chord is struck on a Steinway Grand in the salesroom 
the corresponding strings on all the other pianos perfectly 
attuned vibrate in sympathy. The holy and devout souls of 
all lands and times thus knit up in a mystic communion of 
saints show themselves capable of a like response. 



30 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The saints "in waiting" lingering before God in thoughtful 
acts of worship for the renewal of their strength receive many 
an added manifestation of the divine helpfulness. It was good 
that the aged saints were there. It was good that the young 
child was publicly presented according to the custom of his 
people. He received their recognition and the added blessings 
invoked by these ripened saints. The mother kept in her heart 
their mystic sayings and prophetic words to be repeated to 
the child when he should reach the years of moral response. 

The christening of any child in the place of worship be- 
comes an occasion full of spiritual suggestion and prophetic 
meaning. This child too may be set for the fall and the rising 
of many. This child too may interpret many a life to itself in 
some high calling which touches human interests vitally. The 
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed through the finer 
service rendered by this child in the years ahead. 

The presentation of any child in the temple with words of 
Scripture, of consecration and of prayer sets forth the deeper 
values of the family life. The recognition of God's rights in 
the child ; the public acknowledgment of gratitude to the au- 
thor and giver of life for this added joy; the open acceptance 
of the solemn duties and responsibilities of parenthood; the 
grateful acceptance of the welcome accorded to this little life 
into the fellowship of aspiring souls by the witnessing and 
worshiping congregation — all these interests are worthy of 
being invested with their full spiritual significance through the 
employment of appropriate ritual. 

When the ceremony had been performed then Simeon sang 
his "Nunc Dimittis" in the full serenity of accomplished hope. 
"Now let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation." It was only the faintest beginning of that 
august career which would change the moral currents of his- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 31 

tory which Simeon had seen, but the promise of the future 
was there contained. 

The eye of faith sees already in the patient action of the 
sower of good seed the ripening harvest which is four months 
away. The eye of faith sees in the devoted and concerted 
action of the other seventy disciples who set forth in the name 
and in the power of their Lord, the forces of evil falling like 
lightning before their heroic advance. And here in the face 
of a little child destined to show forth the glorious character 
of the Eternal without lack or blemish, the eye of devout 
faith beholds already the great fulfillment which opens the lips 
in grateful praise. 

What a lovely picture the lesson leaves with us as the old 
man singing his song of trust lifts high before us the child 
destined to reign until every knee shall bow before him in 
joyous allegiance ! The face of untried promise and the face 
of ripened experience seem to open vistas toward the east and 
toward the west. 

The east is where we look for the sunrise. It is the realm 
of beginnings. It is the seat of that which is fresh, new, un- 
worn. Three gates of the city front toward the east. Above 
each one of these friendly gates is written a word of the Lord. 
Over the first, "Suffer the little children to come." Over the 
second, "Of such is the kingdom." Over the third, "A little 
child shall lead them." And through those gates bright-faced 
boys and girls are entering the city on their way to joyous, 
useful, Christian living. 

"And on the west three gates," fronting toward the sunset. 
They look out upon those with whom the day is far spent — 
it is toward evening. The heat and burden of the day have 
been borne and the night is coming when no man can work. 
The fresh uncertain promise of childhood has ripened into some 
sort of fact. And over each one of these gates is written like- 



32 THE MASTER'S WAY 

wise a word of the Lord. Over the first, "At evening, it shall 
be light." Over the second, '"'With long life will I satisfy him 
and shew him my salvation." And over the third, ''He that 
endureth to the end shall be saved.'' And through those three 
gates many who have walked with him and worked with him 
these many years are entering into the joy of their Lord. 

The aged Simeon and the infant Messiah ! The reminiscent 
but expectant past holding the bright promise of the future in 
its arms and singing its glad song of hope ! 



VI 

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE 
Luke 2: 40-52 

"The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wis- 
dom." It was an all-around development, the nature filling out 
on all sides. Physical efficiency was not attained at the ex- 
pense of the mind nor did intellectual growth dim the luster 
of the soul. "He increased in stature and in wisdom and in 
favor with God." 

He was twelve years old when we find him in the Temple. 
In that warmer climate this might be equal to fourteen years 
with us. He had no halo round his head — the artists paint 
him so, but the straightforward men who wrote the four Gos- 
pels never speak of a halo because it was not there. He did 
not know everything — he was asking questions after the man- 
ner of a boy. He was a genuine boy growing up from baby- 
hood a cell at a time, increasing slowly but steadily in size 
and in knowledge, in character and in social interest, commend- 
ing himself alike to the favor of God and of man. 

He had been taken up from little Nazareth to Jerusalem to 
attend for the first time the great annual Feast. The first 
sight of a city becomes a notable experience in the life of a 
boy. He saw many things during those eventful days which 
he had never witnessed before. And when the caravan with 
which his family traveled started back to Nazareth the boy 
detached himself from the company and at the first night's 
camp he was missing. Joseph and Mary returned to Jeru- 
salem the second day and "after three days they found him in 
the Temple." 

33 



34 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Amid all the attractions of the city the lodestone for this 
boy was the Temple. Its mysterious appointments and fur- 
nishings, its throngs of worshipers "from every nation under 
heaven," its whitebearded Rabbis and its spiritual suggestive- 
ness, all made a profound impression on the sensitive nature 
of this boy. His main interest, his major study, was to be 
along the line of spiritual growth. The coming events of his 
moral career cast their shadow before. He turned away from 
the busy streets and the gay bazaars to ask his questions in 
the temple of God. 

His presence there and his words denote three attitudes 
which are instructive. First, his attitude toward Mary his 
mother. There is a note of reproach in the words with which 
she greets him after the long search. She had been anxious 
and she utters her censure upon his course, "Son, why hast 
thou thus dealt with us?" His assertion of independence, his 
taking of the initiative, brought a feeling of pain which all 
fathers and mothers fully understand. 

The boy's answer holds two words which show the dawn of 
the sense of personal responsibility, — "I must." He felt that 
he must be about his Father's business. Here was a developing 
moral consciousness taking that life into its own keeping as 
ultimately responsible for it. He must begin to make decisions 
and to abide the results of them. 

The mother cannot forever choose the boy's food, determine 
his habits, select his associates, direct his activities, as she did 
when she carried him a babe on her breast. She does not 
desire this, for such prolonged tutelage would rob her of the 
joy that "a man is born into the world." She faces the fact 
that the boy must learn to take his own life into his own keep- 
ing. This new self-assertion contained food for reflection 
and, "Mary kept all these things in her heart." 

It did not involve an absolute break. "Jesus went down to 



THE ONE WHO CAME 35 

Nazareth and was subject unto them." There was a continu- 
ance of that gracious obedience which had been their joy. But 
with it went the acceptance by the parents of the fact that the 
boy had now a mind and a moral nature to be shaped by the 
determinations of his own will. There had grown up within 
him that which said "I" in clear consciousness of independent 
personality; and a further something, a moral sense, which 
said "must." And with this also there had come an unfolding 
appreciation of his share in the religious life of the world as 
he voiced his sense of participation in his "Father's business." 

The utter absence of flippancy or conceit clothes the incident 
with wondrous beauty. Sometimes when a boy breaks the halter 
strap and bursts through the barn door in order to escape into 
the open field, it does not indicate the dawning of personality ; 
it simply indicates that he has an attack of reckless conceit. 
Like measles it is ugly and painful while it lasts, yet under 
proper treatment he will recover. But in this incident in the 
life of the boy Christ we have the assertion of individual 
responsibility chastened and directed by tender regard for the 
wishes of the parents. 

In the adolescent period a stupid insistence upon some par- 
ticular pattern of goodness which God never intended for that 
particular boy, may prove fatal to growth. Ignorant dogma- 
tism may work harm unspeakable to the interests of life as 
surely as does the careless indifference which allows the boy 
the final decision as to how he will use his Sundays, where he 
will spend his evenings, what sort of fellows shall be his asso- 
ciates. The boy whose judgment on any business proposition 
would not be rated as worth a tuppence is sometimes allowed 
to ignorantly shape those years which make or break him as a 
man. \ ] . i i," ! : ' 

Delicate and difficult is the task of bringing sufficient pres- 
sure of wholesome influence to bear so that the life may be 



36 THE MASTER'S WAY 

guided aright and yet not so much as to cripple or force the 
growth which should claim its share in that freedom which is 
man's distinctive right. Difficult indeed — the fine art of form- 
ing character makes by comparison all the other arts seem 
coarse. Raphael's task in spreading his high conception of a 
divine child on canvas in the Sistine Madonna was easy com- 
pared with the task of fathers and mothers, teachers and pas- 
tors, when they attempt to show results in flesh and blood 
worthy to be enrolled as "the children of God." 

In the second place his presence indicated his attitude 
toward his instructors. "They found him in the Temple in 
the midst of the doctors hearing them and asking them ques- 
tions." How true to life it all is ! The boyish spirit of inquiry 
energetically asking questions ! I once sat behind a mother 
with her boy on the train and he asked a hundred and thirty- 
seven questions between Boston and Worcester — I think that 
was the number, although the engine whistled at one point and 
I may have lost count while the boy kept rolling up the score 
with his steady flow of inquiry. 

The boy in the temple was not asking foolish questions — 
"the people were astonished at his understanding." The ques- 
tions which spring from a genuine interest in the problems 
which confront boy life are everywhere welcome. The healthy 
boy commonly approaches life with an insistent interrogation 
point in his hand and it is for maturer wisdom to give him an 
honest, useful reply. 

The boy is about his father's business when he addresses 
himself inquiringly to those problems and mysteries which 
impinge upon his unfolding energy. What a frightful wrong 
where he is allowed to grope in darkness or be guided by the 
blind or the evil into the nearest ditch ! The persistent appeal 
of unfolding life feeling its way toward the level of mature, 



THE ONE WHO CAME 37 

responsible existence should elicit the best the world has in 
sympathetic interest and wise guidance. 

It has not pleased the Almighty to create boys with any great 
talent for keeping still. The actions are oftentimes nothing 
but meaningless motion. The questions are numerous and 
trying, but they serve to set the door ajar for the entrance of 
the great truths he is to live by. If our own wider experience 
can meet that restless eagerness and give it a bias, causing the 
boy to think hard upon whatsoever things are straight and 
square, true and clean, reputable and likeable, and to make 
them an everlasting personal possession, then the spiritual 
results will be beyond estimate. Foundations will be laid on 
which will stand pillars in the temple of God to go no more 
out. 

And finally his action manifested his attitude toward God. 
The Authorized and the Revised versions respectively bring 
out the twofold thought in the mind of the boy in the Temple. 
He uttered his sense of claim upon the Father's attention — "I 
must be in my Father's house." He voiced his sense of per- 
sonal responsibility — "I must be about my Father's business." 
The personal interest of the Father in the child and the per- 
sonal obligation of the child to the Father, here are the two 
fundamental elements in all religious life. 

The boy who is made to feel that he is forever in the way 
at home when older people wish to talk or to read; who is 
made to feel in church that religion is only for grave theo- 
logians or for good little girls, may be pardoned for possessing 
but a dim consciousness of the Father's personal interest in 
him. He has not been made at home in his Father's house. 
And the boy who is made to feel that the conduct of life be- 
longs altogether to "grown-ups," that no particular value 
attaches to his immature powers, may be forgiven for a 
defective sense of personal responsibility. 



38 THE MASTER'S WAY 

After six days we find many a boy in the temple. The boys 
are there Sunday after Sunday looking and listening. They 
are thinking out their problems in a certain presence and atmos- 
phere. They are deciding under the influence of august sur- 
roundings what shall be the way of life for them. If somehow 
we can lift clearly before their wondering eyes the Master 
of men, he will surely draw them unto himself that they may 
be forever in the Father's house and about the Father's 
business. 






VII 

THE MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
Mark J-' 1-8. Luke 3:1-20 

What a grim list of names confronts us when the door 
swings back at the beginning of this chapter. "Now in the fif- 
teenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate be- 
ing governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, 
Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God 
came unto John in the wilderness." Tiberius Caesar, Pontius 
Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas, these were the men who held sway ! 
Hold these four names before your eyes ! Ponder their asso- 
ciations and you will understand why the word of this stern 
prophet was indeed the word with the bark on. When we read 
the time of day from this four-faced clock of political history 
we can well believe that the man in camel's skin with a leather 
girdle about his loins was the man for the hour. 

The source of the success which was achieved by that stern 
ministry is indicated in a single statement — "the word of God 
came unto John." His power lay in his personal experience 
of divine truth. His labors rested on the sure foundation of 
the divine initiative. He came not leaning upon his own brief 
understanding of human need or moved merely by a vague 
wish to undertake the ethical culture of his generation — he 
was called, commissioned, empowered to prepare the way of 
the Lord and to make straight paths before the feet of the 
divine purpose. 

The note of high, clear confidence appropriate to an ac- 
credited messenger delivering that which he has been given 
has fallen out of the utterance of many a modern prophet. 

39 



40 THE MASTER'S WAY 

He does not speak about the sins and the needs of men, about 
the truth and the grace of God as one having authority. He 
speaks rather as one of the Scribes reciting a well-worn tradi- 
tion. His deliverance may be bright and wise but it lacks that 
heavenly something, that quality of a "Thus saith the Lord" 
which carries on its face its own divine credential. 

The official strut and pompous self-esteem of the ecclesiastic, 
feeling the full weight of his gown and bands, is only a weak 
caricature of the responsible servant of God endued with 
power from above. The silly imitation comes in for contempt, 
but people stand ready to give heed to the man who has re- 
ceived at first hand a word of the Lord which he must deliver 
under penalty of displeasing the One whose favor constitutes 
his very life. 

The limitations of this stern prophet of righteousness are 
not blinked. He "came neither eating nor drinking" — he did 
not build his life into normal association and saving fellowship 
with the common interests. He was slow to recognize in the 
patient, merciful ministry of Christ, the true Messiah. John 
had pictured the Coming One as laying his ax at the root of 
the tree, as visiting the scenes of human activity fan in hand 
to purge the floor and burn up the worthless elements of 
human society with unquenchable fire. He was in doubt as 
to whether Jesus was the Christ or whether he should wait 
for another. 

The general method of John's life was such that while he 
outranked all his predecessors according to the generous esti- 
mate of Jesus, nevertheless in both spirit and privilege, "He 
that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he." 
To go apart from the common pursuits, roughly dressed, 
meagerly subsisting on locusts or wild honey and to utter the 
sternest condemnation upon the evil doing of men, may exhibit 
a striking indifference to human pleasures and reveal a pur- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 41 

pose of wrought-iron. But to go about eating and drinking, 
building one's influence into an actual, normal order of life, 
diffusing sympathy and giving nurture to even the feeblest 
beginnings of right life, this is a higher, a harder and a holier 
task. The greater man is the man who has caught the method 
and spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

We recognize all this yet we find something worthy of the 
highest admiration in the whole-hearted way in which John 
gave himself to the subordinate and preparatory work of clear- 
ing the ground for the laying of new foundations. He was 
ready to become merely "a voice" if only he might cry, "Make 
ready the way of the Lord." He would gladly acquiesce in 
an order of progress where his work would "decrease," if 
thereby the reign of the Christ spirit might "increase." 

His main message may be summed up in the word, "Repent." 
He preached a repentance which does not mean a mere suc- 
cession of weak and wet sobs over one's sins — it means an 
"about face." It calls for a change of purpose. It involves 
the making of all crooked paths straight and the rough ways 
of life smooth. It calls for changes radical and laborious like 
the grading and filling on a mountain road in preparation for 
the coming of royalty. John delivered his message in concrete 
terms to make clear the fact that true repentance does not rest 
in personal and hidden remorse — it must seek expression and 
bring forth fruit in altered conduct that all flesh may see the 
salvation of God. 

When he preached this definite, clear-cut doctrine of re- 
pentance it "found men," as we say, "where they lived." He 
knew how to address his communications so that they would 
reach their destination. The multitudes who came to hear 
him as he preached in the wilderness did not go away saying : 
"Beautiful sermon." "Splendid effort." "One of his best." 
They came to him, saying, "What then shall we do?" 



42 THE MASTER'S WAY 

He gave them a straight answer. His "counsels to peni- 
tents" were clear and direct like his original summons to "about 
face." He told the men who had more food and more clothing 
than they actually needed to minister to the needs of those who 
lacked. He told the tax collectors to show their penitence by 
forsaking all manner of extortion. He told the soldiers who 
made trouble by foraging, by being quarrelsome and by their 
insurrections to show forth their new mood and purpose by 
doing violence to none, by making no false accusations and 
by being content with their pay. 

He met every man at the front door of his own particular 
interest and failing. He pointed a straight forefinger in- 
dicating the line each man was to take as he began his moral 
advance in preparation for the coming of him who was to rule 
all these interests of daily life. In the expression of penitence 
sobs are cheap and tears are low-priced. But deeds of 
restitution and new modes of life are above rubies. 

John was a hater of shams. When he saw a thoughtless 
multitude frightened by the announcement of an approaching 
judgment, hurrying out to be baptized as a kind of saving 
form, a ceremonial substitute for right living, a friendly 
shadow to stand between them and the impending crisis, he 
gave them a scorching rebuke. He likened them to the scared 
vipers scurrying through the grass as the dry stubble of the 
Jordan valley burned close behind them. He told them to 
bring forth "repentance-fruit" — that is to say new courses of 
conduct indicative of their desire to stand in just relations 
with the God of righteousness. 

He gave a stinging rebuke to the complacent Pharisees and 
Sadducees who stiffly turned down his summons to newness 
of life, saying, "We have Abraham to our father." He bluntly 
reminded them that Jews merely as Jews are nothing. God 
is able, if need be, to make Jews out of stones. He could raise 



The one who came 43 

up children to Abraham out of the rocks in the street. The 
real objects of God's interest are righteous men. These he 
cannot make out of stones for character is made only where 
free moral agents co-operate with God's grace and truth for 
its production. 

In his every utterance this preacher in the wilderness 
brought out the truth that real religion is not form or cere- 
mony ; it does not rest upon the accidents of race or birth ; it is 
not best expressed in sobbing emotion nor in frightened re- 
morse. The question as to the reality and worth of a man's 
religion turns at last upon his fruitfulness, upon what grows 
out of him steadily and evenly as he moves ahead in his 
appointed calling. 

The revival of religion needed today to prepare for the 
fuller coming of the Son of Man into our earthly life and to 
secure that richer baptism of all our relationships in the divine 
spirit, is a revival strongly ethical and genuinely social rather 
than ecclesiastical or emotional. Let the call issue north, 
south, east and west, for an "about face" toward righteousness 
in the common relations of every day life ! Then all flesh 
may see the salvation of God ! 

This devoted forerunner never allowed his hearers to forget 
that he was a mere finger-board pointing ahead to Another. 
When "the people were in expectation and all men reasoned 
in their hearts concerning John whether haply he were the 
Christ," he promptly turned their thought away from himself 
that he might direct it to the Coming One. He likened his 
humble office to that of the house servant who meets his 
master and unlooses his sandals as he enters the door. John 
baptized with water as a symbol of the moral cleanliness 
attainable through repentance, but he pointed ahead to One 
who would baptize with the Holy Ghost affording men the 



44 THE MASTER'S WAV 

spiritual energy demanded for patient continuance in well- 
doing. 

We find one common characteristic attitude in all these 
Hebrew prophets — they are all pointing ahead as if they would 
say with the patriarch of old, "It is not in me; God shall give 
the answer of peace." Isaiah and Micah, Malachi and John 
the Baptist all pointing ahead to "a Coming One" ! At last 
One came who said, plainly, "I am he." And when penitent 
men were made clean by the word which he had spoken unto 
them, he breathed on them until they received the Holy Spirit. 
Thus men are brought at last into the fullness of the blessing 
of the gospel of peace for whose coming the ministry of John 
prepared the way. 



VIII 

THE TESTING OF NEW-FOUND STRENGTH 

Mark v 9-13. Matt. 4: 1-11 

When Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan it marked a 
spiritual crisis. Whether that was the beginning of a full- 
fledged consciousness of his messianic mission we may not 
feel sure — it was certainly a unique hour in his personal de- 
velopment. The heavens were open and the Spirit descended 
upon him like a dove. The sky became vocal and he heard 
the divine voice say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am 
well pleased." The rugged prophet of righteousness who had 
served as a forerunner bowed in humble reverence before the 
Light which he saw shining in a dark place. 

"Then" the narrative says — in the hour of wondrous uplift 
and quickened spiritual consciousness — "was Jesus led up by 
the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 
With that open heaven before him, with the divine voice 
sounding in his ears and the mighty baptism of the Spirit 
possessing his soul, he was hurried away and for forty days 
he saw nothing but the desert and the devil and the wild 
beasts. 

"Forty days !" We are familiar with the use of the word 
"forty" in Scripture where the exact number was not known. 
We often say, "I have told you forty times" — meaning an 
indefinite number of times. When the children of Israel drew 
near to their destination their leader said to them, "Remember 
all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years 
in the wilderness." When Moses went to the top of Sinai, 
"He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights." 

45 



46 THE MASTER'S WAY 

When Elijah in the hour of his discouragement had enjoyed 
the gracious ministry of God's messenger, "He arose and went 
in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto 
Horeb." W r hen Jonah uttered his warning to the Ninevites 
he cried, "Yet forty days and ,'Nineveh shall be overthrown." 
In every case the period of time was indefinite in the mind of 
the writer. 

"He was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of 
Satan." How long did this temptation of Jesus continue? 
His time of trial too was for an indefinite period. I have a 
feeling that the testing of his strength reached all the way to 
Calvary. He was tempted in all points and from all sides, like 
as we are. "He learned obedience by the things which he suf- 
fered." His ability to say, "Not my will but thine be done," 
in that supreme hour was an achievement rather than an 
original endowment. He faced and fought the enemies of the 
divine purpose not in one single dramatic experience, as a 
hasty reading of this passage might indicate, but throughout 
his whole career as he bore witness to the truth and accom- 
plished the will of him who sent him. 

It is the common lot and the Son of Man was not exempt. 
Hard upon the dramatic experience, the inspiration of some 
moment of high privilege lifting us to the very mountain top, 
comes the necessity for moral testing and the obligation for 
patient effort in the dusty plain below. 

The real test of the final worth and validity of any high 
experience comes when we inquire as to whether it can be 
carried from the mount of inspiration out upon the plain of 
useful achievement and on into the deserts of difficulty. Will 
the sense of an open heaven, a descending spirit and the feel- 
ing of divine approval endure for forty days, for forty years, 
for an indefinite period, enabling us in the strength of that 
meat to put down evil under our feet? The ultimate value of 



THE ONE WHO CAME 47 

any high mood is revealed as it finds or fails to find expression 
in those terms of useful achievement which have to do with 
the coming of the Kingdom of God. 

The temptations are here attributed to a Tempter. There 
was no taint of evil in the Master to become an original source 
of temptation. There had been no previous sins to furnish 
further impulse toward evil. He was solicited by that which 
was no real part of himself. We find a general summary of 
the moral history of Christ in the fourth gospel, "The prince 
of this world cometh and he hath nothing in me." 

But it was a real temptation. The fact that he did not yield 
takes nothing from the force of the actual solicitation to 
wrong-doing. The man who successfully resists temptation 
may feel the force of the temptation more than does the weak 
man who readily succumbs. In the latter case the will gives 
way before the recognition of the complete strength of the 
solicitation becomes a fact of consciousness, just as the man 
who successfully resists any kind of "pull" feels the power' of it 
more than does the man who allows himself to be drawn along. 
The real measure of useful resistance in our moral material 
can best be determined by what it sustains without breaking, 
and the strength of evil's thrust can be similarly computed. 

We have here apparently an account of what Christ himself 
thought of certain crises in his own inner life. It is plain that 
no one was present for he was "alone with the wild beasts," 
suggestive of the desolate scene of his moral conflict. He gave 
to his disciples this vivid, pictorial account of his own spiritual 
struggles. 

He was tempted to make use of his exceptional endowments 
to further his own interests without reference to the Father's 
will. "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones 
be made bread." He would upon occasion use his exceptional 
power to provide a hungry multitude with food, and would 



48 THE MASTER'S WAY 

share their food with them. He would not in selfish fashion 
lift himself alone beyond the reach of need by the use of his 
exceptional powers. 

"If thou be" — Jesus does not argue the matter nor reply to 
the challenge by some piece of magic. He will commit his 
own needs into the care of the Father by an unfaltering 
obedience to his holy will. He will live by all the great words 
which proceed out of the mouth of God, faith, hope, love, 
believing that all the things which the Father knoweth that he 
has need of will thus be added to him. 

Jesus was tempted to win attention and a following by a 
clever short cut. He was shown the swift results to be 
achieved by casting himself down unhurt from the pinnacle 
of the temple. The naming of "the pinnacle of the Temple" 
rather than some high cliff in the wilderness is significant. The 
greatest obstacle he would encounter in his work would be 
the dullness and bigotry of the Jewish Church. If he could 
only leap unhurt from the pinnacle of the temple into the 
midst of the priests, what a master stroke it would be ! He 
would at once enlist their interest and carry their confidence 
by storm ! 

But he refuses to court danger in order to be miraculously 
rescued from peril. He will not tempt God. He turns away 
from the whole quixotic habit of disdaining the considerations 
of prudence and common sense in the supposed interest of a 
more complete faith in the supernatural. The hearts filled 
with disappointment over the collapse of the "Shiloh" enter- 
prise or by the sorry outcome of the Dowie movement and the 
parents who bring upon themselves tragedies of sorrow by 
flaunting their spiritual ecstasies in the face of all the counsels 
offered by competent knowledge, would do well to read again 
the words of the Master regarding presumptuous confidence. 

The devil was either clumsy or wickedly artful in his use of 






THE ONE WHO CAME 49 

Scripture on this occasion. The ancient promise which he 
cited reads, "He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep 
thee in all thy ways." In all thy ways — exactly ! But to cast 
one's self down from the pinnacle of the temple in showy 
fashion "is not going 'in one's ways' but quite out of them." 
It involves such a radical departure from the line of duty as 
to forfeit all claim upon God's providential care. If this 
clumsy use of Scripture is the best that the spirit of evil can 
do, then the devil had better stick to his last. 

Jesus was tempted to gain a sweeping success by compromise 
with evil. The subtlety and the force of this temptation lies 
in the fact that the suggestion holds a modicum of truth. By 
moral compromises which may not seem serious at their in- 
ception, immediate and impressive victories are won. The 
devil magnified his jurisdiction somewhat in offering to turn 
over "all the kingdoms of the world" on condition that the 
Master should enter into some satisfactory arrangement with 
him, yet the power of compromise is beyond all question 
mighty. 

But kingdoms which are won by "falling down and wor- 
shiping" the devil, by the lowering of aim, by the cheapening 
of ideals, by the dilution of moral values, are not susceptible 
of being made "Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ." 
There are victories so dearly purchased as to become defeats. 
In the furtherance of the great interests which Christ had in 
mind right method is imperative. "Worship the Lord thy 
God and him only serve !" The redemption of all those fields 
of effort upon which he 1 was invited to cast his eyes and the 
conquest of all human interests by the mastery of moral pur- 
pose cannot be had on any easier terms. 

We do not think of the Temptation as having been an out- 
ward, visible or audible transaction. If the motion picture 
man had been there his wonderful camera would have recorded 



50 THE MASTER'S WAY 

none of the movements indicated in the narrative. If the 
sensitive disc of the phonograph had been within hearing dis- 
tance it would have registered nothing of this conversation 
between Christ and the powers of darkness. But if those who 
have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand had 
been present, they would have witnessed a struggle where the 
supreme soul in history was wrestling not against flesh 
and blood but against principalities and powers, against the 
rulers of dark suggestion, against spiritual wickedness in high 
places. And they would also have beheld a spiritual victory 
and ministering angels rejoicing with him who overcame. 



IX 

THE CALL OF THE FIRST DISCIPLES 

Mark v 14-28. Luke 5: 1-11 

How many of you in your journeyings about England have 
been on the southwest coast at the little fishing villages of 
Lynmouth, Clovelly and Ilfraeombe. They lie off the turn- 
pike. Thomas Cook & Son have not yet effaced the simplicity 
of the life there. You pass along the shore and see wrinkled, 
weatherbeaten fishermen, salty as dried codfish, "mending 
their nets." 

If we could get the stained glass windows, the holy paintings 
and the pious imaginings of the picture-books out of our 
minds, we should see something like that in this passage. The 
fishermen of Capernaum and of Clovelly are far apart in 
miles but not in kind. The men Jesus saw and summoned to 
be his disciples were not fancy saints with halos round their 
heads^-they were plain, rough, unspoiled, outdoor folk such 
as we find on the southwest coast of England. As he passed 
along he saw two such men, mending their nets. 

Their homely employment looked back and it looked ahead. 
The nets had seen service; they had been torn by use. The 
rents were service stripes on these soldiers of the sea. The 
two men were putting in fresh, stout twine to repair the dam- 
age done by hard usage in useful accomplishment. And their 
action was in itself a prophecy — the nets were to be taken out 
and used again to catch more fish. 

When the Lord calls a man to an important task he com- 
monly chooses a busy man. He prefers a man who is on his 
feet ready for action. Gideon was threshing and Elisha was 

51 



52 THE MASTER'S WAY 

plowing when they were called to be leaders in Israel. Peter 
was fishing and Matthew was collecting customs when they 
were summoned to be disciples. "If you want a thing done, go 
to a man who is busy." The professionally "leisure class" are 
commonly found "merely killing time at enormous expense." 
The busy people, the men who wear their habits of useful 
action as naturally as they wear their clothes, are the men to 
w T hom Jesus makes his appeal for helpers. 

This first group of four was made up from two pairs of 
brothers. Jesus would have the natural relationships find their 
deeper consecration and their higher glory in a common devo- 
tion to the interests of his Kingdom. He would utilize and 
ennoble "the spirit of comradeship" already existent as a 
further asset in moral service. And the fact that "James and 
John, the sons of Zebedee, were partners with Simon" served 
still further to knit up these lives in a common interest as the 
Master enlisted them for a broader enterprise. 

He couched his appeal for this higher form of service in 
terms made familiar by long employment. "Follow me and I 
will make you fishers of men." He would utilize those in- 
stinctive reactions established by years of habit for spiritual 
ends. The patience, the spirit of faith, the skill and the tact, 
the readiness to face the uncertainties of a calling which 
reaches down into the realm of mystery, all this would have 
value in those men who were to do business in the great waters 
of spiritual effort. 

Jesus would interpret every man's calling in terms of spir- 
itual value while he continues in it, and he would have the 
man bring out of it the effectiveness consequent upon training 
and experience to be invested in a service more directly re- 
ligious. From henceforth the very qualities which had enabled 
Simon and Andrew to become prosperous fishermen, would 
enable them to "take men." It is related that one of them 



THE ONE WHO CAME 53 

afterward cast a net into the sea of life as it flowed in upon 
the shores of Judea at the Feast of Pentecost so efficiently as 
to add to the number of those who were being saved three 
thousand souls in a single day. 

The ready response of these busy men testifies to the fact 
that "his word was with power." How swiftly the action 
moves in the account ! "They were fishers." "Jesus said unto 
them, Come ye after me." "They forsook their nets." "They 
left their father Zebedee in the ship and went after him." At 
the call of Christ they left something which was not evil but 
good. Fishing was a legitimate, a useful, a rewarding occupa- 
tion. But if it stood in the way of a higher form of service, 
they were ready to yield the less to the greater. 

The measure of any evil is not the grossness of it nor the 
malice expressed in it — the measure of any evil is the amount 
of good it displaces. And if that which is not in itself evil, a 
legitimate business, an allowable recreation, an innocent com- 
panionship, a wholesome ambition, does nevertheless displace 
something higher, it is to be sacrificed. If it comes to be a 
hindrance in the way of Christian growth and usefulness, 
then it must become subordinate to its superior. The pros- 
perous fishermen forsook all and followed him into a calling 
of more moment. 

But before they left the beach he would have them learn a 
further lesson in such form that they would never forget it. 
The fishing the night before had not been good — they had 
toiled all night and taken nothing. They were discouraged 
and were reluctant to try again. But Jesus bade them, 
"Launch out into the deep and let down your nets." 

It seemed to Christ as he looked these bronzed, weather- 
beaten men over, without and within, that "they were fishing 
along the shores of a great opportunity when they might have 
been doing business in great waters." They were exercising 



54 THE MASTER'S WAY 

their ability in the shallows, catching minnows but leaving the 
larger opportunity unutilized. The use they were making of 
their privileges was meager and unsatisfying because of a timid 
unwillingness to undertake the greater task. Therefore he 
bade them, "Launch out into the deep." 

He would have every man take life at deeper levels, make 
fuller use of each privilege, hitch his wagon to a star, not to 
the rear car on some noisy elevated train, attempt the larger 
task which summons the best of his powers into effective 
action. "Launch out," he cries to all those who hug the shore 
and haunt the shallows of human experience, living with low 
aims and meager ideals ! His word touches all those finer 
values in life which are of more worth than all the fish in the 
sea. 

"Launch out into the deep," the voice of wisdom cries ! 
Enter profoundly into the real meaning of these educational 
facilities. The aim of college training is not to confer a bit 
of social distinction, or to enable a man to compete more suc- 
cessfully with his untrained fellows in making money, or to 
bestow a sense of superior culture — the average young Amer- 
ican can be trusted to think quite as highly of himself as he 
ought to think without formal authorization in the shape of a 
diploma. The aim of education is to develop in every one 
the sense of personal adequacy to the demands which society 
may legitimately make upon him and to foster the readiness 
to respond. Launch out and land that ! 

The main fault in much of the current religious life is not 
that it is insincere but that it is superficial. There are thou- 
sands of people with a little religious belief — they are not 
infidels. They would shrink from being classed with the irre- 
ligious — they attend church if the day is pleasant and nothing 
better offers. They have some faint desire to honor God and 
become mildly useful to their fellows where it does not involve 



THE ONE WHO CAME 55 

too much self-sacrifice. But they have never seriously tried 
to think their way through to a clear, definite Christian faith 
or to enter into the power and meaning of heartfelt worship 
or to show themselves resolute in striving to make the prin- 
ciples of the Master bear rule in all the relations of life. They 
fish too near the shore. 

If they would only launch out! If they would only cast 
aside their supply of "reading matter" which was never worth 
printing and is not now worth reading, and would strive 
to know what David and Isaiah, John and Paul and our Lord 
himself had to say about life and its deeper meanings, what a 
different note would be heard! 

Jesus would have his new-found friends learn something of 
all this as they face the more exacting responsibilities of spir- 
itual service. And the wondrous draught of fishes secured 
under his direction became a parable in action. The little dory 
those men used in fishing almost sank under the weight of the 
great catch. The hearts of the men sank altogether under the 
moral impression made. "When Simon Peter saw it, he said, 
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." 

We find in Luke a fine sense of discrimination in his use of 
words. In the other Gospels the body of water which laps the 
shores of Capernaum and Tiberias is called "the Sea of Gali- 
lee." Luke calls it uniformly a "lake." He was a Gentile, 
more widely traveled, perhaps, and he saves the word "sea" 
for the Mediterranean, referring to this smaller body of water 
always as "the Lake of Gennessaret." 

He shows the same discrimination in his notice of the words 
applied to Christ. When Jesus bade Simon launch out, the 
answer was, "Master, epistata, we have toiled all night and 
taken nothing, nevertheless at thy word I will." Jesus was 
here a "Master" whose word was to be obeyed. But in the 
presence of that mysterious manifestation of power summon- 



56 THE MASTER'S WAY 

ing him to a searching and exacting form of service, Simon 
says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Here 
his use of the word Kurios, Lord, in addressing Jesus denotes 
another mood and the deeper sense of his own unworthiness. 
The latter mood saw farther into the meaning of that situa- 
tion. Jesus is a "Master" whose precepts are to be obeyed. 
Jesus is "Lord and Saviour," making men conscious of their 
unworthiness and then by his redeeming grace lifting them 
into a sense of peace and of power. This is the mood in which 
men may launch forth for the accomplishment of unmeasured 
results. 



X 

THE MINISTRY OF HEALING 
Mark 1:29-45. Matt. 4' 23-35 

It is significant that in the New Testament the Greek word 
translated in certain passages "to save" is in other passages 
translated "to heal" or "to make whole." Salvation is whole- 
ness, soundness, completeness of life. 

The same Lord forgives iniquities and heals diseases. The 
same divine energy operates upon the soul and upon the body, 
now utilizing thoughts and desires, impulses and confidences, 
now utilizing fresh air and pure water, good food, useful exer- 
cise and wise remedies, restoring, upbuilding and completing 
the entire life according to a purpose steadily beneficent. The 
Saviour of the soul is known also as "The Great Physician." 

It would be inaccurate to speak of a miracle of healing as 
"a violation of law" or as a piece of magic performed for the 
amazement of the people. A miracle according to New Testa- 
ment usage is a result wrought for spiritual ends by divine 
power according to laws which at present lie outside the field 
of ordinary experience. In what we call "natural events," we 
find " a divine purpose moving steadily across the ages, keep- 
ing its appointments with foreseen human needs." In those 
events termed "miraculous" we find this same divine energy- 
no w manifesting itself according to methods not compre- 
hended at present by ordinary knowledge and experience. 

It would be hard to disentangle the accounts of the healing 
miracles wrought by Christ from the narrative of his life — 
the very attempt would all but compel men to banish the Gos- 
pels from serious historical consideration. 

57 



58 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The occurrences here described are indeed amazing. Jesus 
himself was an amazing occurrence. His teaching in an atmos- 
phere of perfunctory tradition; his quality of life in an envi- 
ronment of morbid formalism; his impress upon the higher 
life of the world, fresh, vital, abiding; his redemptive energy 
finding expression in the recovery of the moral life of millions 
of men in all lands and times since he appeared — all this to 
me is more amazing than the opening of blind eyes or the 
healing of a leper. When I reflect upon the moral reactions 
which his life produced and is steadily producing, I feel a 
strong presumption that the great natural order may have had 
a response to make to him altogether unique. And when I 
read the sober statements of trustworthy men, some of them 
eye witnesses of the events described, I am ready to give seri- 
ous consideration to the claims advanced touching the healing 
miracles wrought by this unique Personality. 

The medical practice at that time was steeped in repulsive 
nonsense. The record of materia medica in that day reads like 
the recipe for some witch's broth : 

" Eye of newt and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 
Adder's fork and blind worm's sting, 
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing." 

It was from such wild and unsavory ingredients that the cur- 
rent practice endeavored to minister to men diseased. It was 
into an order of procedure defaced by disgusting ignorance 
that the Master of Life came with his sympathetic touch and 
his word of power. 

"He healed many that were sick of divers diseases" — this 
is the hard fact which somehow withstands the file of criticism. 
How did he do it? The final answer to that question is high 
— we cannot attain unto it. He aimed to secure the co-opera- 
tion of the expectant hope and confident trust of the patient. 



frig ONE WHO CAME 59 

He worked in an atmosphere of sympathy and faith, taking 
with him into the sickroom Peter and James and John, his 
trusted intimates, and putting out those who proved a hin- 
drance. When he found himself in an atmosphere of unbelief, 
"He could do there no mighty work." He added to that widely 
resident impulse toward recovery, causing the cut finger to 
heal, the broken bone to knit, the system overloaded with 
noxious substance to cast it off, the power of his own wise, 
loving personality. And somehow these energies availed for 
the recovery of many from their ills. 

"Violations of natural law?" Rather the addition of a higher 
force which altered the possibilities in that situation as men 
had sensed it! The intelligent man takes an acre of Nevada 
desert where by the operation of natural law nothing of value 
grows, and by skillful irrigation and the scattering of a few 
seeds, he causes it to blossom like the rose. The course of 
nature had never produced anything there but sagebrush. It 
might seem to a resident prairie dog that a miracle had been 
wrought. He might rub his eyes and say, "We never saw it 
on this fashion." But the result was attained according to law 
simply by the introduction of a new measure of energy and 
intelligence. If an ordinary man can thus change "the course 
of nature" in that barren field, causing the existing order to do 
what it would not have done but for his approach, what shall 
we say in the field of human betterment, physical as well as 
moral, when the Son of God makes his august approach? 

In the quiet of the synagogue service at Capernaum, a wild 
cry suddenly broke upon the ears of the worshipers. There 
was a man present suffering from one of those maladies plainly 
nervous or mental in origin and character which the popular 
diagnosis of that day referred to "possession by a devil." The 
normal condition of the patient seemed to be overborne by 
some hostile personality within. "He has a devil," they said. 



60 THE MASTER'S WAY 

In the face of mysterious afflictions of a mental or nervous 
nature, puzzling still to the wisest of physicians, we are not 
surprised that the people of an earlier day unused to anything 
like scientific diagnosis should hastily conclude that the suf- 
ferer had been overpowered by some hostile influence which 
they termed demoniacal. 

Jesus by the strength and helpfulness of his own wise, lov- 
ing, restorative personality recovered the unfortunate man to 
his normal condition. The man writhed and "retched" (to give 
literal translation to the term used) and then became quiet and 
self-controlled. And the people witnessing the recovery of this 
nervous sufferer gave the tribute of their unstinted admiration. 
"They were all amazed, saying, With authority he commandeth 
even the unclean spirits and they obey him." 

"When they were come out of the synagogue they went into 
the house of Simon," where his wife's mother lay sick of a 
fever. In the Christian regime worship stands next door to 
service. It is never far from the synagogue of aspiration to 
the home of pain and need. The holy hands which are up- 
lifted in prayer are speedily stretched forth in sympathetic 
effort. This movement of the Master, so simply recorded, was 
characteristic of his entire method. It is meant to be a Scrip- 
ture written for our learning to be read, marked, learned and 
inwardly digested to the end that the same direct relation may 
obtain between our mood of worship and our impulse to serve. 

The Master took the sick woman by the hand, his very touch 
a symbol of the healing impact of the divine life upon human 
ills, and lifted her up. "And immediately," Mark says, without 
the tedious delay of a long drawn-out convalescence, she arose 
and participated in the household duties. His word was with 
power and his touch established the necessary connection be- 
tween bodily ill and an all-sufficing energy of restoration. 

The public act of healing in the synagogue followed by this 



THE MASTER'S WAY 61 

deed of mercy in a well-known home brought a flood-tide of 
interest in this new prophet of Galilee. The enthusiasm of the 
people was restrained during the day by the fear of breaking 
the Sabbath, but the Jewish Sabbath ended at sundown. "And 
at even when the sun did set they brought unto him all that 
were diseased and them that were possessed with devils and 
all the city was gathered together at the door." 

How familiar is this popular outburst of interest ! The un- 
thinking in that land and in this show less interest in the 
message than in the medicine of religion. 

The Master refused to be known solely or mainly as a won- 
der worker. He withdrew repeatedly from this popular ac- 
claim consequent upon deeds of healing. He charged those 
who were healed, "See thou say nothing to any man." He 
discouraged all display of his cures and avoided notoriety. 
But his policy of silence availed little. The men who were 
healed published it everywhere and blazed it abroad. "There 
went out a fame of him and multitudes came to be healed of 
their infirmities." 

He was compelled to rise early in the morning "a great 
while before day," and depart into a solitary place for prayer. 
Healing virtue had gone out of him and his strength must be 
renewed. The sufferings of a crowd induced a heavy drain 
upon his sympathetic nature. There resulted a depletion which 
sleep unaided could not restore. There under the quiet stars 
with the open sky above he waited upon the Father to replenish 
his spiritual vigor. 

When he returned there met him a lone sufferer who had 
not been able to mingle with the throng around his door the 
night before. "There came a leper beseeching him and saying, 
If thou wilt, thou canst." The sick man had complete faith in 
the power but an imperfect faith in the disposition of Jesus to 
make him whole. Jesus healed him and sent him to the priests 



62 THE MASTER'S WAY 

to make the customary thank-offering for his cleansing both as 
a means of securing officially a clean bill of health and as a 
grateful testimony unto God that Christ had made him whole. 
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits ; 
who f orgiveth all thine inquities ; who healeth all thy diseases ; 
who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee 
with lovingkindness !" 



XI 
THE PARALYTIC FORGIVEN AND HEALED 

Mark 2: 1-12 

"Again he entered into Capernaum after some days and it 
was noised that he was in the house." And straightway there 
was no room to receive the people, no, not even for an over- 
flow meeting about the door. The earlier accession of popu- 
lar interest consequent upon successful acts of healing was 
here intensified. Jesus used the opportunity it offered not for 
the further "healing of divers diseases," but for direct spiritual 
appeal. "He preached the word unto them." 

In the midst of his discourse there came a startling inter- 
ruption. Fragments of the ceiling began to fall upon the heads 
of his hearers. The blows of a pick vigorously wielded over- 
head were heard. Presently an opening in the roof appeared. 
And then through that enlarged opening there was slowly 
lowered into the room where he stood the body of a paralyzed 
man. It was an unconventional proceeding for a religious 
gathering, but it had back of it the impulse of a mighty faith. 

The friends of this palsied man had heard of the deeds of 
healing wrought by this prophet of Galilee. It may have been 
that these men had personally witnessed such acts, for they 
were resident in Capernaum. And they had faith. They had 
tremendous faith ! They believed that if their suffering friend 
could only be brought into the presence of Jesus he would be 
restored. 

They were not to be balked by an array of obstacles. They 
would not be turned back as they carried the sick man toward 
the place where Jesus was either by the press of a crowd, too 

63 



64 THE MASTER'S WAY 

selfish to give way for a sick man, or by the tough persistence 
of an oriental roof. It was no easy task to lift the man to the 
top of the flat-roofed house, but. faith and high resolve accom- 
plished it. It was not easy to risk the anger and a claim for 
damages on the part of the landlord as they dug out a hole 
sufficient to lower the sick man into the presence of the Master, 
but faith and resolve leaped all barriers. And now in the 
midst of the discourse the eyes of pathetic helplessness looked 
up into the answering eyes of the Son of Man. 

"When Jesus saw their faith" — the faith of those friends as 
they had borne resolute and persistent testimony to it by heroic 
action — his heart was moved. He was ready to honor this 
vicarious faith exercised by the four men on behalf of their 
companion. The faith which one sympathetic soul exercises 
on behalf of another is not only accounted unto him for right- 
eousness — it becomes efficacious for his needy fellow. We 
are knit up by our sympathies into a community of interest 
where the interaction of faith may accomplish wonders. 

But the Master seemed to begin remotely making an indirect 
approach to this palsied man's need. "Son, thy sins be for- 
given thee." It was not for this that the four friends had 
made their heroic effort. 

Jesus recognized the fact that some diseases have their roots 
in the moral nature. The malady may have been originally 
induced by wrongdoing. In such case a new mode of life is 
demanded for a permanent cure. There must be a new spirit 
and a new purpose if the recovery of such a sufferer is to be 
undertaken with hope of success. He therefore addressed 
himself first to the deeper lack. He brought before the mind 
of the palsied man a need more vital than that occasioned by 
crippled limbs — "Son, thy sins !" 

"There were certain of the scribes sitting there." They were 
always there. The presence of the carping critic, himself 



THE ONE WHO CAME 65 

powerless to bring relief to the palsied limb or to the guilty- 
heart, may be counted upon until the millennium draws near. 
'They were reasoning" (literally "dialoguing") "in their 
hearts." They said: "Blasphemies! Who can forgive sins 
but God?" Here are the signs of coming conflict! Here are 
the drops before the shower which will mean, when the storm 
finally bursts in its full fury, Calvary and the Cross. The 
opposition of the leaders of the Jewish Church to the messianic 
claims of Jesus and to the advance of his Kingdom are the 
most tragic elements in the gospel narrative. How blind they 
were ! The gravest charge which can be laid at the door of the 
learned Pharisees of that day is that the most significant events 
in the moral history of the world were taking place before their 
eyes and they did not see it. 

But their accurate sensing of the full implication of his 
words, as theological experts, enabled them unwittingly to 
bear their testimony to the divine power and prerogative of 
our Lord. "Who can forgive sins but God?" No one! If 
Jesus had been content to be classed as "a good man" or as 
"one of the prophets" or as "the best moral teacher who ever 
lived," he would not have provoked that relentless opposition 
which finally brought the sentence of death. It was his bold 
statement, "The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins," which angered them. Their relentless opposition proves 
them aware of the claim he made for himself. 

Jesus accepted their challenge. He proceeded to establish 
before their unwilling eyes the validity of his claim in terms 
which could not be gainsaid. "Which is easier, to say to the 
sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise 
and take up thy bed and walk ?" One is as easy to say as the 
other, but to make good the saying would be another matter. 
There was One on earth who could set the palsied man on his 
feet in sound health and fill his heart with a new sense of 



66 THE MASTER'S WAY 

peace. And there before the grateful eyes of the four men 
who had been exercising their faith for another and in the 
presence of the carping, dialoguing scribes Jesus wrought his 
deed of love in the realm of the visible that all might know 
that his saving power extended with equal efficacy into the 
realm of unseen values. 

He would have been a discredited teacher from that hour in 
the eyes of friend and foe alike had he failed. But he does 
not fail. His word here as everywhere was with power. 
"That ye may know" ! The evidential value of those deeds 
of love is here indicated. The expression of his beneficent 
energy in works of healing, became an accepted vise upon his 
claim to renew and restore the inner life until it should bear 
the image of God. 

"I say unto thee, Arise." It was his habit to demand from 
those he would bless the co-operation of their own faith and 
effort. "Arise !" — the useless muscles had not reacted under 
the impulse of will for many months ! "Take up thy bed" — 
it seemed a thing impossible! "And go thy way" — was this 
not the cruel mockery of the man's weakness! But in some 
way when the palsied man undertook to show the obedience 
of faith, strength was given him at each successive stage of 
effort to meet the high summons. He arose and stood erect. 
He took up his bed while the people sat in breathless astonish- 
ment. He walked — the crowd now falling back to make way 
for this man upon whom the miracle of healing had been 
wrought. When men undertake to obey the divine summons 
they are fulfilling their part of the contract. The responsi- 
bility then rests with the Omnipotent Author of that initial 
impulse to empower them to meet his demand. 

The Master of life in this telling fashion showed himself 
thus early in his ministry competent to cope with the entire 
force and with the dire results of evil in things physical and in 



THE ONE WHO CAME 61 

things spiritual. He could heal and he could forgive. He 
undertakes the entire removal of that ominous growth of evil, 
root and branch, leaf and Dead Sea fruit, which defaces the 
garden and embitters the lives of the children of men. 

How fitting that these two arms of a common service to 
human need are thus brought together in a single occurrence ! 
The conjunction is worthy of perpetual reproduction. The 
pastor who ministers to the moral life, which in turn reacts 
upon physical health, and the physician who ministers to the 
body which in turn reacts upon the formation of character, 
can best work in sympathetic co-operation, each one doing his 
own work and each one doing it better if he attempts only 
that for which he is particularly adapted and trained. 

The well-rounded cycle of truth in this lesson is apparent 
also in that it passes easily from that which is less to that 
which is greatest of all. Physical health is not the supreme 
good to be sought in life. There was one who had faith in 
God, a vital and an eminent faith, but he suffered for years 
from a physical malady which he termed his "thorn in the 
flesh." He besought the Lord steadily, insistently, devoutly, 
for its removal but it remained. And by his very disappoint- 
ment he learned that there are forms of strength which are 
"made perfect through weakness." He therefore bravely and 
patiently bore his thorn in the flesh to his grave. He was called 
Paul and you will find his name written in the annals of Chris- 
tian history above every name, save only the name of the One 
whom he served. 

The great truth that the Son of Man has power on earth to 
forgive sins holds the center of the stage in this passage. He 
has forgiven them. He is forgiving them every day in the 
year in all the lands of earth. The peace, the joy and the use- 
fulness of all these renewed lives testify to that fundamental 
fact of experience. 



XII 
FEASTING AXD FASTING 
Mark 2: 13-22 

The Master had a keen eye for reality. His gaze went 
through an outward wrapping of forms like the Roentgen ray. 
He saw the inner structure — or the lack of it — in an individual 
or in a system. He recognized the weakness of the hollow 
forms to which Pharisees were devoted, and he said boldly 
that publicans and harlots would go into the Kingdom ahead 
of such religionists — they stood nearer the front in the moral 
procession. 1 

Here he follows up that statement by actually choosing one 
of the hated class to be his disciple. "He saw a man named 
Levi sitting at the receipt of custom and said unto him, Follow 
me." The identity of "Levi" and "Matthew" seems evident. 
Many a man bore two names. Levi is not named in any list 
of the Twelve while Matthew is named in them all. "Levi 
the tax collector" ^and "Matthew the publican" are without 
question the same. It was a brave act for Jesus to give this 
mark of recognition to a , hated class by calling one of its 
worthier members to be his personal disciple. 

There were two sorts of , publicans or tax collectors, those 
who collected the income tax and those who were customs 
officials. The latter were the more hated as their office gave 
them the greater opportunity for extortion. Matthew belonged 
to the latter class and Jesus therefore braved the strongest 
popular condemnation. 

Then with further disregard for the current prejudice he 
sat at meat with the hated class. "Jesus sat at meat in his 

68 



THE ONE WHO CAME 69 

(Matthew's) house and many publicans and sinners sat also 
together v/ith Jesus and his disciples." This social recognition 
was most offensive as is the occasional act of table hospitality 
between the two races in a great section of our own country. 
It seems to imply social equality which one race is .not ready 
to grant. The word of exclusion from "The Merchant of 
Venice" is still in force : "I will buy with you, sell with you, 
talk with you, walk with you. But I will not eat with you, 
drink with you or pray with you." When Jesus ate and 
drank with publicans and sinners it was a grievous affront to 
the popular prejudice. 

He justified his course by saying: "I am a physician. I go 
where my patients are. I put myself in touch with them as a 
practicing physician must and for a kindred purpose." And 
then he added with a fine mingling of humor and of sarcasm : 
"They that are whole have no need of the physician but they 
that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to 
repentance !" 

How delicious is the gentle scorn heaped upon their com- 
placency in those words of rebuke. "They that are whole" — 
and there they stood before him crippled and disfigured by the 
moral maladies they suffered. "Have no need" — the scribes 
themselves would have said so but as we look upon them now, 
where can we find such spiritual destitution? "I came not to 
call the righteous" — and as the words fell from his lips, we 
can almost see a smile of reproach as he reflected upon their 
sorry lack of righteousness. He knew what was in man. He 
utilized the various elements of human speech. And here the 
element of humor and of irony finds place in making his 
rebuke effective. 

"Why do thy disciples fast not?" It was the practice of 
his disciples rather than his own habit which the Pharisees 
criticised. It may be that Jesus conformed, feeling that it was 



70 THE MASTER'S WAY 

becoming to fulfill all the righteousness of the religious method 
in which he had been brought up. But under the influence of 
the principles he taught his followers were already claiming 
for themselves a fuller measure of spiritual liberty. They 
were placing a more distinct and a more exclusive emphasis 
upon things vital. 

Jesus replied by saying that the present mood of the dis- 
ciples in the newfound joy of their spiritual alliance with him 
did not prompt fasting. They could not fast while the Bride- 
groom was with them. He would have religious observances 
fraught with meaning and genuineness or he would not have 
them at all. To fast or to feast because a certain hour had 
come in the ecclesiastical calendar seemed to the Master mean- 
ingless. He would have the fast or the feast marked by 
reality as expressing the dominant mood and ministering nur- 
ture to some definite purpose. ''The days will come !" And 
when they come let the religious observance match the need 
they bring. 

He thus lifts the practice of his disciples above the mecha- 
nism of religious observance. He lays a foundation for that 
liberty indicated in the letter to the Colossians. "Let no man 
judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, 
or of the new moon or of the Sabbath." The spirit of the 
inner life must rule rather than the letter of some hard and 
fast regime. 

The Master used two illustrations in which the same element 
of quiet humor is manifest. He pictured the incongruity of 
putting a new patch on an old garment. The old would be 
too badly worn to retain the stitches binding the new in place, 
and when the patch was inevitably torn away the rent would 
be worse. 

It is a homely picture of the folly of taking some fragment 
of observance away from its connections where it has some 



THE ONE WHO CAME 71 

value and endeavoring to join it with that where there is no 
essential agreement. The hard and fast system of the Phari- 
sees would not serve as a garment to which the new spiritual 
liberty which Jesus came to confer might be linked. The new 
life would demand a new setting. 

It may be well to remember in this connection that no frag- 
ment of exemption from the stricter rules of religious observ- 
ance can rightly be claimed — it must be taken as a component 
part of a new mode of life. There are many who are eager 
to free themselves from the letter of Sabbath observance, for 
example, who have not by any means entered into the more 
exacting liberty of the Spirit. If the new patch is to be taken 
the entire new garment of a finer type of righteousness spring- 
ing from a law deep written in the heart must go with it, else 
the bit of liberty will be abused. 

Jesus added the further illustration of the folly of pouring 
new wine, exhaling gases during its period of fermentation, 
into old wine skins. Where the skin was old the fermentation 
and the clarifying process through which the new wine would 
pass as it matured would rend the skins ; and that would mean 
the loss of everything. 

The molds in which the new life flows must be adequate. 
"If Jesus were to put his new vital force into the enfeebled 
Jewish order, something would break. New ways for new 
powers. The free life must have its own modes. Fasting as 
an act of religion belongs to the old order of outwardness and 
routine, not to the new kingdom of the spirit. The new move- 
ment of life wants other forms of expression." 

The times on which we have fallen have need of such a 
word. New wine is flowing from the press these days. The 
social interest which occupies so large a part of the world's 
mind, and the social sympathy which has such a profound 
hold upon the world's heart, and the social energy which ab- 



72 THE MASTER'S WAY 

sorbs so much of the strength of the world's right arm are the 
new wine of the Kingdom of God. This wine is making glad 
the hearts of many whose zest over the cultivation of an alto- 
gether private and personal piety had begun to wane. 

This new form of Christian impulse will demand new modes 
of expression. It cannot be contained in the old vessels. If 
the desire to serve on the part of the morally ardent young 
men of the land is to be kept without loss and used for what 
it is really worth new wine skins must be forthcoming without 
delay. 

One reason why many a young college fellow with unselfish 
heart and devoted spirit does not turn to the Christian min- 
istry, as would have been the case a quarter of a century ago, 
is that the idea of preaching to a small section of a small town 
already overchurched where half a dozen of his compeers 
struggle together for the attendance and the support of a 
meager constituency, does not summon the best he has into 
action. Give him the challenge of a man's job for his moral 
powers and he will show himself as ready as was Hobson at 
Santiago. 

If the Christian men of a congregation are not asked to do 
anything more than to pay the pew rent and hold up the other 
side of the hymn-book while their wives and daughters read 
the responses and sing God's praise in their gentler soprano, 
with a bare handful of men serving as trustees, deacons and 
ushers, then we can understand why church life may seem to 
them scarcely worth while. 

But if the new wine of Christian impulse, strongly flavored 
as it is with social interest, may find new receptacles there is 
hope. Let it be given to the elevation of civic life; to the 
introduction of a more democratic spirit into the control of 
industry; to the securing of a more equitable distribution of 
the joint product of hands and brains among those who con- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 73 

tributed to the net result. Let men go down to their shops and 
stores, their factories and mines, their railroads and steam- 
ships, saying, "The kingdom of God must come here; the great 
ideals of Christian brotherhood must be realized here in terms 
of economic life.' , Then the new wine of Christian impulse 
will be preserved and all these forms of activity will receive 
the inspiration of a finer content. The new movements of life, 
now in the stage of fermentation and on their way toward 
clarification, must have their own appropriate modes of 
expression. 



XIII 

THE VISIT TO NAZARETH 

Luke 4: 16-30 

"He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up." He 
would ascertain whether "a prophet mighty in deed and in 
word" would be without honor in his own country. It would 
be a test not so much of the prophet as of the country. If any 
country fails to honor the One whose name has been written 
by the ages above every name it dishonors itself. 

He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath "as his custom 
was." He was always there when the day came. It was a way 
he had and during the thirty formative years which led up to 
his public service the steady impress of that habit of worship 
contributed mightily to the development which enabled him 
to say, "I am the way." 

Habits are sometimes heavy, troublesome chains — they are 
sometimes the best of friends. When certain wholesome 
actions have been repeated until they become automatic the 
mind and the will are left free to deal with other problems. 
Progress in character is marked by the gradual transfer of 
important lines of action from the realm of discussion and 
conscious decision to the realm of established custom. The 
great fundamental verities of right living should not remain 
open questions to be weighed pro and con in the face of every 
fresh situation. The committing of certain valued interests 
to habits which have vindicated their worth by long and 
widespread tests becomes the act of moral wisdom. 

Jesus participated in the service of worship. He was no 
silent, passive partner in the august transactions there con- 

74 



THE ONE WHO CAME 75 

ducted between a world unseen and a clearly recognized world 
of human needs. He would sing; he would pray; he would 
have his share in the reading of holy Scripture. There was 
delivered unto him the ancient roll of the prophet Isaiah and 
he stood up to read. 

The passage selected was most significant. Is there in all 
the Old Testament a single verse which more completely sug- 
gests the main motif of his ministry ? He would not emphasize 
the fact that upon occasion he could meet the world's hunger 
with a generous supply of loaves and fishes. He would not 
make conspicuous his ability to heal all our diseases. His great 
purpose is here declared to be one of personal moral renewal 
and of social reconstruction that every life might have its full 
chance to be a life. 

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me" — this is the simple, 
accurate, sufficing account of the initial impulse which under- 
lay his ministry, making it efficient. This was the first sen- 
tence of his first real sermon delivered there in his old home. 
His sense of the presence of God in his own heart, his un- 
broken consciousness of co-operation with the Infinite Spirit 
enabled him to "do always those things which please Him." 
The Spirit of the Lord was within him making there in human 
terms the supreme manifestation in history of the abiding 
character of the Eternal. 

He also struck clearly and firmly the note of social regen- 
eration. "He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
poor. He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to 
preach deliverance to the captive and to set at liberty them 
that are bruised." His total energy was pledged to the large 
task of human reclamation. 

"This day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears" — the 
great result foretold at the time of the Captivity was now in 
process of realization. Jesus was building his own work 



76 THE MASTER'S WAY 

solidly into the highest spiritual expectations of his own race. 
He did not come to destroy nor to surrender one jot or one 
tittle of the best they had seen and felt and hoped for — he 
came rather to fill it full. And as he unfolded the magnificent 
implications of those words of hope from the book of Isaiah 
the people wondered and rejoiced over the gracious words 
which proceeded out of his mouth. 

But there came presently a change in their mood. He was 
one of their own boys. He had played in their streets ; he had 
been taught in their schools. "Is not this Joseph's son?" they 
said, and Joseph was only a carpenter down street. Their 
eyes were holden and they were unable to recognize the divine 
in that which was near and familiar. It is not the only occa- 
sion when the undiscerning were entertaining angels unawares, 
awaking to their high privilege only too late. 

When Benjamin Franklin first appeared in his homely garb 
at the courts of Europe the superficial observers were ready 
with a sneer, "Is not this the Philadelphia printer?" They 
learned presently that a philosopher and a statesman had ap- 
peared upon the scene. When the hard crisis of the Civil War 
came upon us and the one man, so far as we can now see in 
the light of the terrible experiences of those days, was in the 
providence of God placed in command, the undiscerning said, 
"Is not this the rail-splitter?" When the present Chancellor 
of the Exchequer in England first rose into prominence as a 
political leader there were carping critics who remarked, "Is 
not this the Welsh lay preacher?" The inability to recognize 
the splendid and abiding worth of that which may be found in 
a simple setting is not confined to the little company gathered 
that day in the synagogue at Nazareth. 

. In that critical mood they challenged him, "What we have 
heard done in Capernaum, do here." Even though gracious 
words had proceeded out of his mouth they taunted him with 



THE ONE WHO CAME 77 

the fact that he had not healed the sick in Nazareth. The 
easy challenge of unbelief that miracles be worked to order 
for its confounding is altogether common. 

Then Jesus answered them out of their own history show- 
ing that the mercy of God had been steadily carrying on a 
work of relief at outstations. The needy woman of Sarepta 
in pagan Sidon had been relieved by the prophet Elijah when 
"many widows in Israel" remained famine stricken. Naaman 
the Syrian, a worshiper in the house of Rimmon, rather than 
in that place where Jehovah had caused his honor to dwell, 
was healed by Elisha to the apparent neglect of "many lepers 
in Israel." And here again the divine compassion had found 
expression and acceptance in those remote places which the 
orthodox people of Nazareth viewed with contempt. 

Instead of rejoicing in these overflows of the divine mercy 
"they were filled with wrath." They rose up and thrust him 
out of the city for telling them these plain truths. They 
crowded him toward the brow of the hill that they might if 
possible cast him over the ledge. Unless the sectarian name 
which they bore was blown in the bottle which conveyed the 
water of life they would not drink it. The prejuidce aroused 
by these references to the fact that other communities had been 
blinded by their unbelief to the point where they had failed 
to avail themselves of blessings within reach, even as the men 
of Nazareth were doing at that hour, stirred their hatred and 
the gracious words which had proceeded out of his mouth were 
all forgotten. They rose up in their blind rage and made com- 
plete their rejection of the Master's timely message. 

It was a rejection which "struck home" in the fullest sense 
of that familiar phrase. The region of Galilee was on the 
whole more hospitable to his teaching than Pharisee-ridden 
Judea, but here in his own little Nazareth nestling among 
those Galilean hills, he was cast out of the synagogue. His 



78 THE MASTER'S WAY 

visit to Nazareth shed no glory on the little town — it was a 
day of judgment for Nazareth and the place stood condemned 
by its own blind conceit. "He came unto his own" and, to their 
lasting discredit, "his own received him not." 

But his rejection by those who ought most readily to have 
accepted him was not exceptional. It is one of the pathetic 
sights in every community that children reared in homes of 
tender and beautiful piety deny the whole family tradition 
and develop into selfish worldlings. The accumulated spiritual 
capital which they have received by inheritance may save 
them from lines of life morally disreputable, but they add 
nothing to the spiritual forces of the communities where they 
dwell. When converts visit us from non-Christian lands they 
stand amazed at the number of people who, walking in the full 
light of spiritual privilege which has been ours for centuries, 
find nothing better for themselves than the hard, thin life of 
ungodliness. 

When any man reads Harold Begbie's "Other Sheep" with 
its new chapters in "the book of Acts" declaring the wonderful 
victories won by souls less favorably placed than was the 
woman of Sarepta or Naaman, the Syrian, he feels himself 
smitten with a great reproach. The souls that walked in dark- 
ness "followed the gleam" and now they rejoice in a vision 
of light where there is no darkness at all. They joyously en- 
gage in a service crowned with glory and honor. "If the 
mighty works which were done in you had been done" in the 
Tamil country or in Shansi, now may we say in our humilia- 
tion, what wonders of response might not the world have 
witnessed ! 

How difficult it is to recognize the real greatness of great 
things when they are seen at close range ! The Matterhorn 
is greater from Gorner Grat than from the Schwart See 
which lies at the very foot of the awful peak. The Son of 



THE ONE WHO CAME 79 

Man wears now a halo placed there by the grateful recog- 
nition and adoration of nineteen centuries, but to the people in 
whose streets he had grown up he was only "the carpenter's 
son." The mighty acts of the divine spirit in our own day 
bringing down out of heaven from God that better order of 
life whose beauty will shine forth like the sun in its strength 
are likewise too near and familiar to be rightly judged. O 
Lord open thou our eyes that we may see and believe and 
obey! 



XIV 

THE TWELVE MEN 

Mark 3:7-19. Matt. 10:1-7 

"He ordained twelve that they should be with him and that 
he might send them forth." He wrote no book. He arranged 
no stately ceremonial. He gave the barest hints as to organiza- 
tion. He staked the entire future of his cause upon the work 
of twelve men who had been "with him" until they were satu- 
rated with his spirit and were competent to be "sent forth" to 
reproduce the quality of his life in the service they could 
render. 

When he set about the task of promulgating a religion he 
did not therefore prepare an elaborate treatise on the subject. 
He gathered these intimates about him breathing upon them 
the breath of his own life as he said, "Receive ye the Spirit." 
"As the Father hath sent me, I send you." The only way to 
reveal a person is through a person. The Father revealed 
himself through the Son and the Son manifests himself to the 
world through lives which reproduce his spirit. 

He was a true vine and he put forth branches, projections 
and utterances of his own life. He put forth twelve, and then 
seventy, and then three thousand that his work might bear 
fruit. This was his chosen method of perpetuating his influ- 
ence in the world and of bringing men to the Father. "He 
that receiveth you," he said to them, "receiveth me, and he 
that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me." The whole 
way between sinful men and the merciful Father was to be 
bridged by consecrated flesh and blood. 

He chose twelve because every Hebrew would recognize in- 

80 






THE ONE WHO CAME 81 

stantly that this meant a new Israel, a new kingdom in which 
the whole race would be blessed, a New Jerusalem into which 
all the nations of earth would bring their glory and their 
honor. The number twelve was like a thought-form to the 
patriotic Hebrew. He pictured the Kingdom of God as having 
twelve sections. 

The Master chose for the most part outdoor men accus- 
tomed to deal with things and persons rather than with words 
and abstract ideas. They would have a keen, vivid sense of 
reality. They were strong in their individuality — we find noth- 
ing of that smooth monotony commonly apparent where ob- 
jects are counted off by dozens. The fresh, incisive account 
of the way these twelve men followed one Lord but each upon 
his own two feet and with his own particular gait and style 
holds our interest throughout. 

When we follow the development of these twelve men they 
do not give us the impression of a well-drilled company of 
unvarying angels or of the well-cast colossal statues to be 
found under the dome of St. Peters — they are twelve natural 
genuine, clear-cut men, out of whom even the weight of their 
incomparable training did not iron the tucks and wrinkles of 
sharply defined personality. They followed the Master not 
in the weak, servile imitation of the letter but in the fine, 
spontaneous freedom of the spirit. 

PETER stands first in each of the lists given us in the 
synoptic Gospels. He usually came first whatever was on — 
his ardent, impulsive nature brought him to the front. "De- 
part from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," he cries when 
he first meets Jesus, as if thrusting away his hope of salvation. 
"Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life," he says later, clinging more closely than all the 
rest. "Thou shall never wash my feet," he protests, reluctant 
and ashamed when the Master proffers that lowly service. 



82 THE MASTER'S WAV 

Then a moment later at the prospect of failing to enjoy a 
certain form of fellowship with Christ he breaks in, "Lord, 
not my feet but my hands and my head." 

"Though all men should deny thee, yet I never will," was 
his ready boast that fateful night when the possibility of waver- 
ing loyalty was suggested. "I know not the man," he pro- 
tested with an oath, before the cock crew. Everywhere the 
same impulsive, impetous vigor, now good, now bad, but al- 
ways intense. Yet when that eager, impulsive, uncertain 
nature was fully mastered by the divine Spirit, when it was 
brought under the powerful sway of an abiding relation to the 
Saviour, that life became indeed "a rock" of strength enabling 
its possessor to follow loyally even unto death. 

THOMAS is the very opposite of Peter. They stood poles 
apart. Thomas had a melancholy, despondent temperament. 
His three recorded sayings are all characteristic. "Let us also 
go that we may die with him." "Lord, we know not whither 
thou goest and how can we know the way?" "Except I see 
in his hands the print of the nails I will not believe." His was 
a somber nature, looking habitually on the dark side, well-nigh 
color blind to all tints save the deep navy blue. 

Jesus did not meet his uncertainty and fear with rebuke. 
He met him with evidence and sympathy and kindly instruc- 
tion. "Thomas, reach hither thy finger." And when patience, 
guidance and kindly fellowship had done their appointed work, 
this groping soul was enabled at last to cry in joyous recogni- 
tion of what his inner life craved, "My Lord and my God !"' 

PHILIP had a sluggish, calculating, practical disposition. 
"We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the 
prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 
The facts are there carefully set out as in a trial balance. How 
different from the eager cry of Andrew — "We have found the 
Messiah." In the presence of the hungry multitude, "Jesus 



THE ONE WHO CAME 83 

said to Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat ?" 
Philip, bookkeeper-like, went off instantly into a mental cal- 
culation as to the probable cost of the requisite food. "Two 
hundred pennyworth," he said presently, "would not suffice 
if every one of them would take a little." Everywhere a 
prosaic, unimaginative man, lacking in vision and enthusiasm ! 

But these cautious, practical men are very useful when we 
are dealing with the financial aspects of religious work. They 
add up well on the "Committee of Ways and Means," even 
though their spiritual enthusiasm never carries them quite up 
into the third heaven. They have a way of telling us with 
clear-eyed, hard-headed sagacity what ought to be done next. 
In a "great house" there are vessels of gold and of silver, and 
also of wood and of earth; and there is a large place of use- 
fulness for practical men. 

JOHN has sometimes been pictured as gentle, quiet, tender, 
almost effeminate. He has quite another look in the Scriptures. 
He was "a son of Thunder," capable of that which is electric, 
startling, powerful. There was something hot and terrible in 
his early temperament — he it was, not Peter nor Judas, who 
wanted to call down fire and burn up the Samaritan village 
which refused entertainment to the Master. His very intensity 
of soul made him narrow — "Master, we saw one casting out 
devils and we forbade him because he followed not with us." 
He was not conspicuous for modesty — he was one of the two 
who wanted to sit on the right and the left hand of the Lord 
in his Kingdom. They made the confident boast that they 
could drink his cup and be baptized with his baptism. 

But this man, bold, self-confident, ambitious, intense, af- 
fectionate, was tamed, softened, subdued, by a long and notable 
Christian life, and what a nature his became ! He seemed at 
last to see into the very heart of Christ. His ultimate hope 



84 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and his open vision of God's love are well voiced in those 
words, "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 

JAMES is never represented as speaking for himself — not 
a recorded word of his appears anywhere in the New Testa- 
ment. He is not the James of the Epistle. Nevertheless he 
seems to have been one of the three closest companions of our 
Lord. Into the place of death in the home of Jairus, into the 
glory of the Mount of Transfiguration, into the farther depths 
of the Garden or Gethsemane, "Jesus took with him, Peter 
and James and John" — always those three ! 

The untold possibilities of quiet strength are here suggested 
in that the silent James is thus honored by his Master and 
given a place within that inner circle of friends. 

The choice of MATTHEW seemed to fly in the face of 
popular prejudice and to cast aside all maxims of expediency. 
Matthew was a publican, a tax collector. The people hated all 
such; they linked the name "publican" with the lowest terms 
they had — "publicans and sinners," "publicans and harlots," 
"a heathen man and a publican" ! So their phrases ran ! His 
selection by the Master was surely "a venture of faith." 

But Christ habitually put the leaven down into the meal 
where it was fairly hidden by the task imposed upon it. He 
came not to call the righteous but men who had missed the 
mark. 

Space would fail me to speak of Andrew and Thaddeus and 
Simon the Canaanite. But there is the last name in the list, 
JUDAS ISCARIOT! Why was he chosen? Was he false 
from the first? We know all the stock questions. His selec- 
tion seems another and here an unsuccessful venture of faith. 
He was mercenary; he was two-faced; he placed himself in 
touch with the forces of evil at a great crisis and experienced 
a tragic downfall. He had his chance to gain holy character 
along with Peter and James and John. But even the gracious 



THE ONE WHO CAME 85 

companionship of Jesus himself did not make his salvation 
inevitable. Take heed therefore how ye stand and where ye 
stand lest ye fall! 

When we mount these snapshots of the twelve men, how 
varied they are ! How wide is the hospitality of the Kingdom ! 
Somewhere in the fellowship and service of the Son of Man 
there is room for every sort of temperament, for every type 
of man. The only test of discipleship is the one he named, 
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
love one another." 



XV 

THE REAL SOURCES OF HAPPINESS 

Matt. 5-12 

The Master gave his first address in a little synagogue at 
Xazareth. He appeared later at the larger Temple in Jeru- 
salem. In this lesson he stands on a hillside under the open 
sky. He enlarged his audience room as his own vision 
widened. 

He went into the open not merely because the outdoors was 
larger than the indoors — he went because the people were 
there. "Seeing the multitudes he went up into a mountain 
and opened his mouth and taught them." His message was 
called out by the appeal of life. It was framed up in the 
immediate presence of life. It bore directly, every line of it, 
on some real problem of human life. 

"Seeing the multitudes" as one who knew what was in man 
would see them ! He knew their hopes and their fears, their 
sorrows and their sins, their broken plans and their burdens 
of disappointment. He saw it all with sympathetic under- 
standing, and the very sight of it opened his mouth that he 
might teach them something of abiding worth. 

He saw that they were looking everywhere for happiness. 
It is "what all the world's a-seeking." Jesus honored that 
quest by making the first word in his Charter Day Address 
the word "Happy" or "Blessed," as it is commonly translated. 
But the misguided people were looking in the wrong place. 
They were looking outside when they should have had their 
eyes turned within. 

We see their mistaken successors engaged in the same ill— 

86 



THE ONE WHO CAME 87 

directed quest. "Happy are they that have good bank ac- 
counts," men say. But the bank account replies, "It is not in 
me to yield unfailing happiness." "Happy are they that have 
university degrees making them intelligent and cultured," men 
say. But the college diploma says, "It is not in me." "Happy 
are they who are successful, who have their names written in 
'Who's Who.' " But what the world calls "Success" replies, 
"It is not in me." 

Jesus therefore in his first sentence faced them about. 
Happy are they that are gentle, merciful, pure-hearted and 
aspiring. Happy are they that hunger and thirst after a higher 
life. Happy are they who make peace and pursue it. The 
outside things are but the tools and machinery — they are all 
secondary. The inner qualities of mind and heart alone are 
primary. Jesus therefore said in effect in this great address, 
"If you would be deeply and permanently happy, seek for your 
happiness within." 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit" — not the men who crawl but 
the men conscious and mindful of their spiritual necessities. 
They seek the divine forgiveness and renewal that with an 
enduement of power from above they may live. The Kingdom 
of Heaven belongs not to those who "say they are rich and 
increased with goods and have need of nothing" — it belongs 
to those who are "poor in spirit," mindful of their lack, whose 
compelling claim upon the divine abundance is that they "hun- 
ger and thirst after righteousness." Theirs is the Kingdom 
of Heaven and they shall be filled with satisfactions which 
never perish. 

"Blessed are they that mourn." Does this put a premium 
on sorrow? Is mourning a thing to be desired? Blessed are 
they who have the capacity for grief, for sympathy and tender- 
ness in the presence of any occasion for sorrow. The occa- 
sions come inevitably. In the course of time the fathers and 



88 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the mothers of earth all die. Then the children who have 
loved and cherished their parents suffer grief. The children 
who have grown hard, careless, indifferent are secretly glad 
that the old people are finally out of the way so that they can 
enter upon the full enjoyment of the estate. Blessed are the 
children who can and do mourn ! 

The man who walks through a city with open eyes sees pain 
and poverty, sin and suffering. There wells up in his soul a 
great compassion and sympathy. Out of that mood is born 
a desire and a purpose to do something to relieve that need. 

There are those who pass through the same city thinking 
mainly of their ribbons and laces, their teas and their dinners, 
their clubs and their games, their light-hearted jests and their 
jolly good times — they are not saddened by the thought of 
what lies groaning and travailing in pain. Blessed are they 
that can and do mourn over the world's need. The silly, shal- 
low, light-hearted nature has neither the normal capacity for 
sorrow nor the clear prospect for comfort. Thank God for 
your capacity to feel grief, know sorrow, cherish sympathy, 
for you will be comforted. 

"Blessed are the gentle" — this rather than "meek" is the 
more accurate translation. "They shall inherit the earth." 
The word is being fulfilled before our eyes. It has been 
pointed out by Charles F. Dole that the fierce, cruel, blood- 
thirsty animals and the huge, awful monsters which at a still 
earlier day possessed the earth, are vanishing. They have 
given place to a gentler type of life. Even the wolves, the 
bears and the lions are becoming scarce — one must pay money 
or travel far afield to see them. 

The gentle animals, the sheep, the cows and the horses are 
inheriting the earth's space and the earth's food. They are 
on the increase. They have shown themselves more useful 
than have the fiercer animals; and as the ages come and go 



THE ONE WHO CAME 89 

the principle of utility determines the issue. The useful inherit 
the earth. 

The fierce, brutish, savage men are giving way before men 
of intelligence and character. And the men of cruel, selfish 
intelligence will more and more go down before the march of 
men possessed of humane and philanthropic spirit. The cen- 
turies are committing the main interests of earth not to the 
Turks, the Thibetans or the cannibals of the South Seas, but 
to those nations which are humane in spirit. The premium 
is upon the spirit of humanity — it will ultimately have the 
field to itself. The process demands time — Jesus said "inherit 
the earth," not possess it at once. When the returns are fully 
in, it will be seen that the humane races have come to possess 
the earth. Blessed are the gentlemen and the gentlewomen! 

"Blessed are the peacemakers" — not those who never fight 
but those whose work lays secure the foundation for lasting 
peace. The hard necessity for fighting, unsought but un- 
avoidable, is sometimes laid upon those who love peace and 
pursue it. It is the temper and quality of the underlying 
abiding purpose which Jesus here names and exalts. 

General Grant was a soldier by profession but a great peace- 
maker. The four brief words upon his tomb yonder by the 
Hudson, "Let us have peace," are most fitting. In the terms 
he offered General Lee at Appomattox, in his suggestion that 
the Southern soldiers keep their horses because "they would 
be needed for the spring plowing," in his whole bearing in 
that momentous hour of victory, he was beating swords into 
plowshares. He was changing the destructive temper of the 
country into a productive one. Blessed are those who 
habitually make peace. 

The Prince of Peace b6re the name of the greatest soldier 
of his race. The name of "Jesus" is but the Greek form of 
the Hebrew "Joshua." Into the presence of evil he brought 



90 THE MASTER'S WAY 

"not peace but a sword." He thrust hard at the enemies of 
the divine purpose until in their rage they turned upon him 
and nailed him to a cross. 

But he was none the less the greatest peacemaker in history. 
He broke the strength of moral opposition by his own attack. 
The quality of his redemptive service was such that he laid 
foundations for enduring peace. He is taking the moral gov- 
ernment of the world upon his shoulders as none other ever 
has and the day is hastening when all the kingdoms of this 
world will have learned to live together in the spirit of an 
inclusive humanity. Blessed are those whose purposes even 
though they stretch through fields of struggle look ever toward 
a settled peace — "they shall be called the sons of God." 

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." By 
purity of intention and through lives of devotion they gain the 
faculties requisite for spiritual perception. They "see God" 
because they have within their own spiritual composition 
something to see him with. 

The pure in heart see God not because they find themselves 
more advantageously placed in some altered situation conse- 
quent upon a day of judgment. They see him wherever they 
may be because the organ of spiritual recognition has come to 
that full capacity consequent upon purity of heart. 

"Eye hath not seen" — it does not come through physical sen- 
sation as Robertson pointed out. "Ear hath not heard" — it 
does not come by hearsay. ''Neither has it entered into the 
heart of man the things that God has prepared for them 
that love him" — the unaided imagination finds itself equally 
helpless. 

It is not because the things which God has prepared are so 
much more imposing and brilliant than all that our eyes and 
our ears and our imaginations have brought to us. It is be- 
cause spiritual values are spiritually discerned. God reveals 



THE ONE WHO CAME 91 

them unto us by his Spirit. The pure in heart behold him not 
as an ultimate reward for their purity but as a result of it here 
and now. They see him as he is and become like him because 
they reflect as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. 

The outward circumstances of the life may be simple or 
stately, but in either case the traits of character outlined in 
these Beatitudes become abiding sources of happiness to the 
possessors of those qualities. If we go forth to meet the facts 
of life in the high mood here suggested, there will come the 
inevitable reaction. Our lives will be filled with righteous- 
ness; we shall obtain mercy; we shall possess the Kingdom; 
we shall be called the children of God ; and we shall see God. 



XVI 

THE LAW OF LOVE 

Luke 6: 27-38 

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies." When the par- 
son reads a passage like that the practical man as a rule has 
his answer all ready. "It can't be done. It isn't a reasonable 
proposition," he says. He feels more sympathy with the 
moral program suggested by Huxley and indorsed by David 
Harum. "Love your friends and hate your enemies. Do unto 
others as they do unto you — and do it first." 

This has a rough show of justice on the face of it. It seems 
to certain minds more manly and less sentimental. But there 
stands the word of Christ, "Love your enemies." 

Then as if that were not enough, he went ahead piling it on. 
Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. 
Resist not evil. If any man takes away your coat give him 
your overcoat also. If he compels you to go a mile with him, 
go two miles. If he smites you on one cheek, offer him the 
other. Give to every one that asketh thee. And from him 
that would borrow — this seems the very climax of unreason- 
able sentiment — turn not away! 

What would be the result of taking these commands seri- 
ously and literally? "Resist not evil" — it would wipe all the 
policemen off the slate. "Love your enemies" — what then 
shall we do for our friends who deserve something better at 
our hands than do the enemies ? "Give to every one that ask- 
eth thee" — it would fill the streets with able-bodied beggars. 
The wills of many would go lame at once. Where a living 
can be had for the asking there are many who will at once 

92 



THE ONE WHO CAME 93 

go into the asking business. "From him that would borrow 
turn not thou away" — this seems to cut the ground from under 
the feet of prudent thrift and turn it over as a prey to the 
shiftless. What an impossible program! 

If we face these commands in broad daylight without flinch- 
ing or pretense, we can understand why Tolstoi when he un- 
dertook to practice a literal obedience to the command, "Resist 
not evil" was adjudged by many as insane. The Russian 
government allowed his writings to circulate when other 
similar writings were suppressed. The officials said, "He is 
a madman anyway and the people will not take him seriously." 

But there stands the word of the Master. He was no half- 
wild enthusiast. He saw clearly, thought deeply, lived divinely. 
Is he then discredited by these commands or are we ? Was he 
an impossible, abstract idealist hitching his wagon to a star 
but with no wheels on it enabling it to move across this com- 
mon earth and render useful service? Are these words meant 
to be taken at their full face value? 

In the Greek Testament two different words are used for 
the sentiment we call "love." There was the more general 
love of an intelligent good will. "Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself." "He loveth our nation and hath built for us 
a synagogue." "By this shall men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples if ye love one another." "God so loved the world." 
This was the "love" to be shown toward an enemy — it was not 
the love of ardent affection but the love of an intelligent good 
will. i i| 

Then there was the other Greek word, expressing an in- 
timate personal affection. "He that loveth father or mother 
more than me is not worthy of me." "Simon, lovest thou me? 
Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." When Jesus stood 
at the grave of Lazarus weeping, the Jews said, "Behold, how 



94 THE MASTER'S WAY 

he loved him." Here is that more intimate personal affection, 
but we are not commanded to have this feeling for our enemies. 

Yet even so, it is to be no idle sentiment lying inert in the 
heart. It must find expression. "Do good to them that hate 
you" — you must act the part. "Bless them that curse you" — 
your bearing must be kindly even in the face of a moral north- 
easter. "And pray" — this is the hardest test of all for in that 
quarter where no successful pretense is possible we must give 
expression to our undefeated good will — "pray for them who 
despitefully use you." It is a hard saying any way we take it. 

We shall find help in the interpretation of this passage from 
the principle discussed by the late William Newton Clarke in 
his last book, "The Ideals of Jesus." The principle is this: 
Let your own better nature determine your action in any given 
situation rather than allow it to be determined by the evil doing 
of others. Do not allow the evil in others to rule your action 
— let the best that is in you decide. And Jesus after the 
manner of the Orient put this sound principle in the bold 
paradoxes found in this lesson. 

How that principle lights up this entire passage ! When 
some man strikes you a blow you are not to strike back. If 
there is to be a second blow let it be struck by him on your 
other cheek rather than by you in the spirit of retaliation. 
When some man wrongfully compels you to go a mile with 
him, if there is to be any further expenditure of energy let it 
be in going another mile, rendering him some further service, 
rather than in taking vengeance for the wrong already done. 

You are to live out uniformly the generous temper, giving 
to every one who asks. You do not always give the thing 
asked — you may give rather the thing needed as wise parents 
do with their children. When you do not give money, you give 
interest, sympathy, friendship, personal help which may be of 



THE ONE WHO CAME 95 

more worth than silver and gold. In every case your action 
is to be determined by the demands of your own best self. 

Jesus grounded this mode of life in the universal moral 
order. "Do this," he says, "that ye may be the children of 
your Father who is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise 
on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust." God is not forever bent on immediate retalia- 
tion. His action is determined from within — it springs from 
the depths of his own moral nature. He pursues the even 
tenor of his way in certain vast and stable cosmic habits, send- 
ing the sunshine and the rain quite impartially. And when he 
punishes the evildoer the discipline also is suggested and alloted 
according to an abiding moral purpose in the heart of an 
Infinite Father. 

Therefore when we allow our actions to be determined from 
within by our own better natures rather than by the provoca- 
tion offered by men of ill will about us, we become in spirit 
and in method "the children of our Father who is in heaven." 

Here is the sublime end which the whole process of spir- 
itual nurture has in view ! "I will write my laws," not across 
the face of the sky, nor on tables of stone, nor in the lines of 
action prompted by the evil doing of others. "I will write my 
laws upon their hearts and I will put my truth in the inward 
parts." The purpose which God has in mind is the gradual 
development of steadfast, dependable moral personality within, 
to which all the interests of conduct may be safely committed. 
The special action suited to each situation may then be left 
to the high determinations of that inner life. Out of your 
own heart are the issues of life and not from the chance 
provocations of those who may act as your enemies. 

We become morally free and spiritually efficient only as we 
rise above petty rules and maxims made to fit special occa- 
sions. We become morally free only as we rise above the 



96 THE MASTER'S WAY 

current practices of society as shrewdly voiced by some Hux- 
ley or David Harum. We become morally free only as we 
rise above the provocations offered by men of ill will and come 
to have our own standards of action within. "Where the 
spirit of the Lord is," where he has actually put the content of 
his moral message, the net result of his spiritual nurture, 
"there is liberty," and nowhere else. "Ye shall know the truth" 
by the intellectual perception of it and by experiencing its 
power to renew the heart, "and the truth shall make you free." 

It is the way he trod who uttered these high commands. He 
had enemies and he loved them. When a Samaritan village 
refused him hospitality his disciples wanted to call down fire 
from heaven and burn it up. But he said patiently : "Ye know 
not what spirit ye are of. The Son of Man is not come to 
destroy men's lives but to save them." His action was deter- 
mined not by the rude response of the little village to his 
request for a night's lodging but by his own moral nature. 

When men despitefully used him, hanging him upon a cross 
between two thieves, he prayed for them. "Father, forgive 
them for they know not what they do." His word, "Love your 
enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use you," was 
made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. His 
mode of action throughout was determined from within his 
own heart of compassion. He dealt with men not according 
to their immediate deserts but according to their needs and 
according to the redemptive purpose he cherished on their be- 
half. And because he furnished his own high standards of 
action his life became morally efficacious beyond any other life 
in history. 

Beautiful are the reactions which come inevitably and cease- 
lessly from this mode of life. "Forgive and ye shall be for- 
given. If ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly 
Father will also forgive you your trespasses." The world will 



THE ONE WHO CAME 97 

never leave off quoting the tribute paid to that high quality 
by the master of English expression. It has learned his stately 
words by heart. 

"The quality of mercy is not strained. 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown. 



It is an attribute of God himself. 

We do pray for mercy 
And that same prayer doth teach us all 
To render deeds of mercy." 



XVII 

THE OLD LAW AND THE NEW LIFE 

Matt. 5: 17-26 

It was the Master's way to gather up the fragments which 
remained from older systems about to be superseded by the 
bounty of his own teaching that nothing should be lost. He 
would not destroy the dotting of an i or the crossing of a t 
in the old law — he would supplement its lack and bring it to 
completion. "I came not to destroy but to fulfill." 

The role of the iconoclast is not difficult — it is easy, like that 
of the bull in the china shop and oftentimes as futile. The 
task of the man who would patiently conserve the values in 
efforts confessedly imperfect and carry on the work of vital 
fulfillment is higher and harder — and incomparably more 
rewarding. 

In the critical treatment of the Bible, where the untenable 
views of literal inerrancy have been handled without gloves; 
in the radical criticism of the existing social order where the 
spirit of competition as a source of motive has been given no 
quarter ; in the harsh scrutiny of public men and public mea- 
sures where the righteous intents have sometimes been slain 
with the wicked by withering condemnation not unlike that 
which fell upon Sodom, it has seemed to some men of more 
patient temper that the work of destruction has proceeded 
quite far enough — that the common interest might now be 
better served by men whose joy it is "not to destroy but to 
fulfill." 

The Master indicated with unsparing candor the defective 
quality of the current morality. "Except your righteousness 

98 






THE ONE WHO CAME 99 

exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall 
in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Their right- 
eousness was altogether too external. It busied itself with 
small matters like the tithing of pepper and salt and mustard 
to the neglect of the weightier matters of justice, mercy and 
truth. It also lacked the spontaneity of that joyous obedience 
which springs from a sense of filial relationship to the Father. 

The Scribes and Pharisees, taking them by and large, were 
not bad men. There were "blind guides and whited sepul- 
chres," "hypocrites and serpents," among them, but they would 
have averaged much higher than this characterization might 
indicate. The glaring defect lay in their system — they were 
intent on keeping rules ; they sought to "pay their way" with 
the Lord by proper attention to outward observance while 
their hearts remained far from that loving, joyous obedience 
consequent upon genuine sonship in the divine family. 

It is impossible to produce a gentleman or a lady by pains- 
taking attention to minute rules of etiquette in some book of 
deportment. Even though that studied politeness exceeds the 
scheme of decorum outlined in "Answers to Correspondents" 
in some widely read journal, the result is but a mechanical 
attention to certain moves in the game stopping far short of 
genuine good breeding. True politeness can only spring from 
thoughtful, genuine, unselfish consideration for the pleasure 
and well-being of others expressing itself in fitting word and 
deed. Out of the heart issues that courtesy which marks the 
gentle-man, the gentle-woman. 

The Master applies this principle in searching fashion to the 
sin of malice. It was said by them of old time and it is said 
by all the ordinances of God and man today, "Thou shalt not 
kill." And a cast of this moral injunction is so far taken as 
a matter of course as scarcely to secure a "rise" from the 



100 THE MASTER'S WAY 

ordinary conscience. It is the rarest thing for these words 
to fall upon the ear of any one who has a thought of murder. 

There is however not only the murder of the hand but also 
the murder of the heart. The man with no blood on his hand 
may have red malice in his heart. The ill will which would 
destroy the peace of another life or strike down its dearly 
cherished hopes is a violation of the command. The killing 
of another life is not solely a question of spilling blood. The 
wounding of another's honor in malice, the destruction of his 
good name, the dashing of the cup of joy out of his hands, the 
thwarting of his plan for life and usefulness become nothing 
less than murderous. They take life. 

The Revised Version removes the softening qualification 
"without cause," which some moral sluggard intent upon 
easier terms had wrongly interpolated — "Every one who is 
angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment." The 
ill will and malice which make against the peace and well- 
being of other lives even though they never become actually 
red-handed by murderous acts here stand condemned. 

The heart of ill will, according to the teaching of Jesus, can- 
not offer acceptable worship. "If thou bring thy gift to the 
altar and there remember that thy brother has aught against 
thee" — even though his grudge be not well founded, there 
must be an effort to remove it — "leave there thy gift before 
the altar; first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and 
offer thy gift." The horizontal relationships of life must be 
made right so much as lieth in us, if we would have the per- 
pendicular relation fruitful when we offer worship. If we 
would "ascend into the hill of the Lord" or "stand in a holy 
place" we must come with "clean hands" — no blood on them — 
and with "pure hearts," devoid of malice. 

The Master makes the same searching application of the law 
of purity. The command regarding adultery is violated by 



THE ONE WHO CAME 101 

the overt act. It is also violated "in the heart" where "the 
greedy gaze of lust intended to keep warm the unlawful desire" 
is allowed. He puts his law in the heart where it belongs and 
insists upon truth in the inward parts. 

The evil act is a symptom indicative of wrong conditions 
underlying it. The wise physician studies symptoms, for they 
enter into all competent diagnosis, but he treats conditions and 
causes. If a woman has a headache a little antipyrin or 
phenacetin or some other wretched coal tar preparation, which 
many thoughtless people are taking in these days to their hurt, 
will stop it. But the wise physician ascertains the cause of 
the headache and treats that. He goes to the root of the mat- 
ter. He seeks to remove the cause that there may not be a 
fresh supply of headache to be drugged into insensibility next 
week. This course of action differentiates the physician from 
the quack. It lifts his treatment above the use of some cheap 
concoction advertised in the newspapers and sold to the 
unthinking. 

The Great Physician who came not to the "whole" but to 
the "sick," not to call the righteous but sinners, pursues the 
same wise course. The outward deeds may under compulsion 
be brought into conformity to certain rules leaving the springs 
of action all unrenewed. In that event the symptoms are 
altered without correcting the underlying trouble. The legal- 
ism of the Pharisee is produced in place of the character of a 
son of the Most High. "The law of the Lord is perfect," fac- 
ing us upon a set of ideals which are right. The grace of the 
Lord is mighty, renewing the springs of action. 

The office of the old dispensation which produced the best 
to be found among the Scribes and Pharisees was that of the 
law-giver. The office of the new dispensation which is de- 
signed to produce all the fine fruits of the Spirit growing stead- 
ily and organically out of a renewed heart, is the office of a 



102 THE MASTER'S WAY 

life-giver. It was said by one of old time, "Now these are the 
commandments, the statutes and the judgments which the 
Lord your God commandeth to teach you that ye might do 
them." The Master said, "I am come that they might have 
life and have it more abundantly." 

The replacing of the formal law of righteousness by the 
more exacting liberty of the spirit does not mean any lessening 
of the emphasis upon the necessity for right living. There 
can be no substitute for righteousness. The striking summary 
made by Matthew Arnold voices a great truth. "The message 
of the Old Testament is, 'Salvation by righteousness.' The 
message of the New Testament is, 'Righteousness through 
Jesus Christ.' " In either case the supreme demand is a Tight- 
ened life which is our holy, acceptable and reasonable service. 
The insistence upon inwardness contained in this message is 
the demand that the righteousness shall be vital. 

The immediate necessity of making the attitude of heart 
right within was here urged. "Agree with thine adversary 
quickly/' Do it now. He may die tonight and you would 
always reproach yourself if you allowed him to carry into 
the unseen world the burden of your ill will. He may live 
and he needs the added help of your fraternal regard even 
as you need it for your own peace and growth. Agree with 
thine adversary quickly. 

"Slow to anger, plenteous in mercy." Put the speed limit 
on your condemnations. Lay in a full supply of kindliness to 
keep your hearth and your heart warm the long winter 
through. To be reconciled to our fellows becomes a mighty 
aid in effecting reconciliation to God. 

When the honest merchant is patient and merciful with some 
dishonest clerk, shielding him from exposure and allowing him 
time and chance to make restitution ; when the man of truth is 
patient with some liar that he may win him to a life worthy of 



THE ONE WHO CAME 103 

confidence; when a pure wife forgives and bears with the mis- 
deeds of a husband who has done wrong; when parents hav- 
ing given their substance for the good of their children only to 
have that affectionate interest wasted in conscienceless living 
persist in unselfish devotion; and when the Infinite forgives 
those who have insulted his merciful patience — in every such 
case the one who extends forgiveness in his effort to effect a 
reconciliation goes outside the city walls to a place called Cal- 
vary. He there suffers for the wrongdoing of others. And in 
every such case we find a form of righteousness which exceeds 
the righteousness which is by rule — we find a form of right- 
eousness destined to become morally efficacious in taking away 
the sin of the world. 



XVIII 
THE VALUE OF TRUE AND K,INDLY SPEECH 

Matt. 5: 33-37 

The liar counterfeits the circulating medium of society. 
Social intercourse with any measure of value is only possible 
on a basis of confidence and the man who lies would break 
down popular confidence in the coin of that realm. The lack 
of veracity is therefore more than a personal fault, or the 
deception of an individual — it is an act of violence against 
the social order. 

If my watch lies to me, I may miss a train or an important 
engagement. If a man lies to me, I am similarly misled. If 
lying becomes common then the prevailing uncertainty as to 
where reliance can be placed and where it must be withheld 
is such as to defeat the very ends of social contact. 

The cowardice of the lie stamps it with an added meanness. 
In the long run we must live on a basis of fact and brave men 
ask nothing better — they will tolerate nothing less. The cow- 
ard and the sneak who lie seek to introduce some soft fabric 
of falsehood on which they may enjoy a brief season of com- 
fort. The man of courage tells the truth even when it hurts. 

The habit of insincerity eats out the moral fiber. The man 
who lives by misrepresentation comes speedily to be lath and 
plaster where he should be solid oak. The amenities tinged 
with unreality fail of efficiency. Social insincerity becomes 
a bar to good fellowship. The fulsome praise in funeral ad- 
dresses has done much to rob that service of the intended 
comfort. The prevalence of extravagant statement and wilful 
misrepresentation in advertising has weakened the appeal of 

104 



THE ONE WHO CAME 105 

"paid matter." The false statement in business transactions 
occasions shame and grief to men of commercial integrity and 
honor as bringing reproach upon their order. The careless 
inaccuracy in letters of recommendation has discounted the 
face value of all such missives. 

The taint of unveracity has invaded the holiest domains. 
The sectarian zeal which overstates the worth of particular 
values in our total Christianity lowers the church in the eyes 
of men; the extravagant claim made for the Bible that "it is 
the infallible word of God from lid to lid" smacks of the pro- 
moter conscious that he is over-praising his wares and ex- 
pectant of a scaling down of his claims by discriminating 
listeners, has brought discredit upon the cause it would serve ; 
the exaggerated efforts of partisans who "point with pride" 
and "view with alarm" far beyond anything justified by the 
facts cloud the issue and hinder statesmanship; the habit of 
special pleading becomes a foe to serious argument and to the 
advance of knowledge by honest conference ; the lack of ac- 
curacy and balance in the fervent appeal of the reformer cause 
his attempts to seem unreal and hinder the cause he would 
advance. 

The word of the Lord is blunt — "Lying lips are an abomina- 
tion to the Lord." This terse verdict rendered by a higher 
court upon all manner of insincerity is affirmed here below 
in the attitude held by all serious men who rejoice in a close 
fit between the words used and the facts in the case. The 
maintenance of public and private speech in such measure of 
confidence as will make of it a reliable medium for the 
transaction of all kinds of business is a weighty obligation. 

"Let your yea be yea," and not some clever approximation 
to it. The notion that some advantageous plea of "not guilty" 
may be entered later because of the fluid character of the 
utterance is scandalous. "Let your nay be nay," with no 



106 THE MASTER'S WAY 

swerving to the right hand or to the left. Whatsoever is not 
this cometh of evil. 

So vital was this matter of veracity deemed by James, the 
apostle of common sense, that he bestows this high praise upon 
accurate and honest speech: "If any man offend not in word, 
the same is a perfect man." The control of the tongue is made 
a kind of test case. If the man's moral nature rings true at 
this point the apostle stands ready to give him a clean bill of 
health. The habit of wise and kind speech with never a break 
from the law of fact or the law of love indicates a moral 
soundness worthy of all confidence. 

The tremendous significance of the tongue is here declared 
in strong terms. "We put bits in the horses' mouths that they 
may obey us," and even though the bit is small, it controls the 
situation. "The ships though they be so great and are driven 
by fierce winds are turned about with a very small helm. 
Even so the tongue is a little member and boasteth great 
things" — it holds the key to the situation. 

On the day of Pentecost the men who were to turn the 
world upside down saw "tongues like as of fire." Presently 
they began to speak "with other tongues as the Spirit gave 
them utterance." The organ of instruction, of persuasion, of 
moral appeal was thus exalted and its mighty potency for good 
indicated in these mysterious terms. 

And the converse of this proposition stands equally plain. 
"How great a matter a little fire kindleth." The overturning of 
a lamp at milking time by Mrs. O'Leary's cow lays the great 
city by the Lake in ashes. The careless flinging away of a 
lighted cigar sets ablaze the whole forest in Eastern Wash- 
ington and Northern Idaho. The forest fire rages until many 
lives and an untold amount of property pay the forfeit. Even 
so the tongue may by untrue or unkind speech start a con- 
flagration of evil which the efforts of years will not quench. 



THE ONE WHO CAME 107 

The steady control of speech by the spirit of veracity and 
of fraternity demands some superhuman aid. "Every kind 
of beast and of bird, of serpent and of things in the sea hath 
been tamed but the tongue can no man tame." The lion tamer 
whose intrepid eye and steadfast soul cause the king of beasts 
to cower at his feet finds himself helpless here. Our only 
hope lies in the enthronement of God's grace in the heart 
setting the lips to speak his truth and the mouth to shew forth 
his praise. 

The twofold capacity of this particular faculty for good and 
for ill seems amazing. The same fountain cannot send forth 
"sweet water and bitter." The fig tree does not bear both figs 
and olive berries. But "out of the same mouth proceedeth 
blessing and cursing." And, alas ! the differing streams alter- 
nate in the same life. The lips which reverently voice the 
prayer of aspiration or the song of gratitude are sometimes 
found giving shape to careless, cruel gossip or to inaccurate 
and uncharitable speech working ill to one's neighbor. When 
the apostle says, "These things ought not so to be," the 
response of human society comes in a loud Amen. 

There are professing Christians who dig deep the graves of 
all their prospects for spiritual usefulness not with spades but 
with their soft, red tongues. They bury beyond the hope of a 
resurrection the chance they had for moral efficacy in the 
service of the Master. 

And the possibilities of exalted usefulness by the right use 
of speech are no less great. "A soft answer turneth away 
wrath." The reactions secured by kindly speech even in situa- 
tions unpromising fill the heart with hope. How differently 
the same sentiment may be uttered. "Keep off the grass," is 
short, sharp and peremptory — and it almost provokes by its 
very tone an open disregard of the injunction. "Why not use 
the walk?" conveys the same intent, and much more win- 




108 THE MASTER'S] WAY 

somely ! The same tongue may voice the same sentiment in a 
way to elicit "blessing" or "cursing." 

"Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pitchers of 
silver." It is a gracious picture of accurate, temperate, well- 
reasoned and kindly speech. And it lies within the power of 
every possessor of a tongue to mint such evidences of value 
and put them in circulation. 

The three monkeys ingeniously carved on the frieze of the 
temple enclosure at Nikko, Japan, show one of the group care- 
fully covering his eyes with his hands and another similarly 
covering his ears and a third screening his mouth. They are 
resolved to "See no evil," "Hear no evil" and "Speak no evil." 
The reproductions of that group have circulated far and wide. 
It would be well if they could carry from the tombs of Iyeyasu 
and Iyemitsu to the ends of the earth the lesson of a more 
charitable outlook and intake, coupled with a kindlier mode 
of speech. 

The Master also puts himself on record as opposed to the 
habit of uttering oaths. He would not detract from the sanc- 
tity of carefully ordered speech in courts of law where the 
invocation of the divine Presence as a Witness to the truth- 
fulness of the statements made is supposed to add to the 
validity of the testimony. He would undertake to lift our 
common speech to that high level of veracity where it would 
need no such attestation. "Swear not at all, but let your yea 
be yea and your nay be nay." 

It is by no means clear that he would forbid the use of 
solemn oaths taken reverently in courts of law to enhance the 
sense of veracity in those who perchance may be morally im- 
mature. But he would hold before us as an ideal the simplicity 
and accuracy of utterance which would make all attestations 
superfluous. Putting one's self in the presence of God upon 



THE ONE WHO CAME 109 

occasion by the employment of an oath may mean the allow- 
ance of a measure of license on other occasions. 

The heaven is God's throne and the earth is his footstool 
and Jerusalem, the place of first rank in the minds of those 
Jesus addressed, is his city. The use of any name in careless 
oath thus becomes irreverent and profane. Let common 
speech be so straightforward as to need no sort of added 
affirmation to cause its acceptance at full face value. 

The eschewing of all oaths, of all titles and of all showy 
forms in social intercourse or in religious worship by a certain 
branch of the Christian Church has given to that group of 
people, not numerous but widely and deeply influential, a 
simplicity, a directness and a sweetness of spirit upon which 
the busy world sets high value. 



XIX 

HYPOCRISY AND SINCERITY 
Matt. 6: 1-18 

There is a delicate irony running through this passage. The 
Master of utterance, voicing his message as none other ever 
has, used all the stops in the organ of human speech. His 
picture of the ostentatious almsgiver blowing his own horn, 
"sounding a trumpet before him in the streets" as he made 
his pompous way on some errand of mercy ; the showy devotee 
praying at the street corner to be seen of men and slyly peep- 
ing through half-closed eyelids to be sure that his effort was 
receiving proper recognition ; the long-winded petitioner lavish 
in his use of language with "vain repetitions" hoping to be 
"heard for his much speaking" after the manner of unin- 
structed heathen; the man who fasted proclaiming his seft- 
denial by disfiguring his face with an expression preter- 
naturally sad that he might "be seen of men to fast" — all 
these neat cartoons of showy insincerity reveal a vein of 
humor. 

The swollen windbag of pretense can sometimes be better 
punctured by the keen thrust of laughter than by the heavier 
blow of serious argument. The "taking off" of some con- 
spicuous piece of religious unreality with a few sharp strokes 
may have more value than many serious words either of de- 
nunciation or of entreaty. "The merry heart doeth good like 
medicine" in more ways than were contemplated perhaps by 
the author of that Scripture — the very sight of hearts made 
merry by some witty rebuke directed against religious insin- 
cerity may produce deep and lasting good. 

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen 

110 



THE ONE WHO CAME 111 

of them." The appreciation of our fellows is not to be scorned. 
All men enjoy the esteem of their associates and they ought to 
enjoy it. The young fellow cut on the bias always flinging 
out sneers against "popularity" and insisting that "he does 
not care a straw what people think about him," probably cares 
more than any of us. He has an idea that his distorted atti- 
tude will cause him to be talked about more because of his 
oddity than would a more rational course. The appreciation 
which comes naturally by right living is to be prized. 

But the men Christ had in mind were making that form of 
reward a supreme object of desire. The doing of religious 
acts from an irreligious motive corrupts the whole inner life. 
The lack of consistency in such case destroys the fine fibre of 
the soul. The men he described were arraying themselves in 
showy garments of almsgiving, of devotion and of self-denial, 
clearly and solely to be admired. And that the measure of 
admiration elicited might be generous they did it elaborately 
and stood ever "in the public eye." 

The desire for esteem is a disappointing source of motive. 
The boy who cannot do his duty unless he is being petted and 
praised for it is a sorry specimen — he is in line to become a 
self-conscious, conceited little prig. The man who cannot 
perform unless he is in the limelight is a broken reed on which 
in some crisis the applauding multitude may lean to its own 
hurt. The man intent upon doing square work and square 
work only, regardless of the presence or the absence of popu- 
lar acclaim, will indeed win the appreciation of his fellows, 
he scarcely knows how. The law of indirection applies here, 
for the man who aims at popularity loses it, while the man 
who loses all thought of it in the devoted investment of his life 
finds it. 

The Master made his appeal for simplicity and genuineness 
in the accustomed paradoxes of the East. It would be impos- 



112 THE MASTER'S WAY 

sible for the right hand and the left hand of a common con- 
sciousness to be literally unaware of their respective move- 
ments. The straining after secrecy becomes itself a bit of 
folly. There are men who show an unnatural eagerness not to 
have the left hand know what the right hand is doing, espe- 
cially if the right hand is not doing very much. The Master's 
word does not have in view such an entirely anonymous 
method of doing good as never to connect the gift and the 
giver. This would be impracticable and in many situations 
"the gift without the giver is bare." 

But Jesus would anticipate the word of Paul — "He that 
giveth let him do it with simplicity.'' "It is more blessed to 
give than to receive" — a great deal more blessed. It hurts the 
independent, self-respecting life to "receive'' alms at all. The 
Christian donor therefore, for his own sake and still more for 
the sake of those whose need he would relieve, avoids "the 
sound of the trumpet'' which might fix the attention of others 
upon his bounty or upon the sad necessities of a fellow-being. 

Jesus warned his disciples against the habit of praying on 
the street corners to be seen of men. "'Verily I say unto you 
they have their reward." They prayed to be seen of men and 
they were seen of men — they got what they prayed for. "They 
had their reward" — the account was settled in full and there 
was nothing further coming to them from that sort of devotion. 

"Enter into thy closet and shut the door and pray to thy 
Father in secret." Jesus is not here defining a physical act. 
He is insisting that every prayer shall be a direct, genuine and 
thoughtful transaction between the soul of the man who prays 
and God. The minister standing in the presence of a great 
congregation may none the less enter his closet and shut the 
door if his prayer is ottered to God alone. The Pharisee who 
went up into the Temple to pray would, unless he had changed 
his mood, be found still praying unworthily though he was 



THE ONE WHO CAME 113 

located Crusoe-like on a lonely island. It is not a question 
of physical location but of the mood and intent of the heart. 

The enterprising reporter, sharing fully in that oft-remarked 
local pride, who referred to the somewhat extended invocation 
at a religious convention as "one of the most eloquent prayers 
ever offered to a Boston audience," may have builded more 
wisely than he knew. There are many audiences who have 
eloquent prayers offered to them in such fashion as to quite 
banish the spirit of devotion from the hearts of all who hear. 
Any such deliverance even though it may be made in proper 
posture is justly characterized as a "grandstand-pray." 

The Master's prophetic eye seemed to run ahead and to 
note the futility of certain prayers where the length and 
breadth and height of the devotional effort were not equal. 
If the man who offers a public prayer has a good flow of lan- 
guage it is possible for him to continue for twenty or twenty- 
five minutes. If he has a reasonable familiarity with con- 
temporary history he may readily find openings where divine 
blessings might suitably be implored in such volume as to 
make the breadth of his prayerful interest stretch as far as the 
east is from the west. And it is possible for people, some 
people, to keep their heads down and their eyes closed during 
the whole of this far-flung, widely ranging and long drawn 
out utterance. But it might be painful to inquire too closely 
into their thoughts during all that time or into the ability of 
the man himself to maintain unbrokenly the mood of devotion 
and the sense of direct appeal to God." The real "height" of 
the prayer might bring what is often felt by the patient people 
to be "a disappointing sense of flatness." 

"Use not vain repetitions." The heathen do — "they think 
they will be heard for their much speaking." We should have 
outgrown this folly of the spiritually immature. It were bet- 
ter to speak five words with a clear understanding of what we 



114 THE MASTER'S WAY 

are about and with an unwavering sense of the august nature 
of devotion than ten thousand words of pious sound flowing 
from the lips with no more spiritual vitality in them than 
might be detected in the efforts of a good talking machine. 

"When ye fast be not of a sad countenance that ye may 
appear unto men to fast." You are not doing it for their sake. 
The beauty and value of such acts of self-denial are to be 
found in the fact that they are personal acts, the inner life striv- 
ing for more perfect harmony with the Infinite life of the 
Father. The outward acts of devotion are like the distinctive 
garb appropriate to certain moods of life or forms of service. 
It was Phillips Brooks who said : "The nun's quietude, the 
priest's purity, the mourner's sorrow, the bride's joy, the sol- 
dier's glory — all are first uttered and then deepened by the 
garments in which they are severally clothed. First you give 
the emotion its true symbol and then the symbol in its turn 
gives new strength back to the emotion." 

"Anoint thy head and wash thy face, when thou fasteth." 
He would not have us proclaim our acts of devotion by con- 
spicuous departures from the ordinary custom of our lives. 
"The Lord looketh not on the outward appearance but on the 
heart." The disfigured countenance, pulled awry it may be 
with a sad look which exaggerates the real spirit of self-denial 
within, does not impose on him. In the long run it fails utterly 
in the eyes of men, for with genuine discernment they speedily 
sort out the sham from the real thing — they too look not for 
any length of time on the outward appearance but on the heart. 

The principles here indicated are susceptible of wide applica- 
tion. The professional smile which shows more teeth than 
soul is sometimes worn to be seen of men and is taken off at 
night with the frock coat. It is a wretched bit of sham mili- 
tating against the cherishing of that honest sympathy which 
every true man feels for all his fellows. The company man- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 115 

ners which are worn that their possessor may have glory of 
men enter speedily into their reward. They become as thorns 
which choke the spirit of genuine courtesy and make it un- 
fruitful. 

The whole effort to keep up a vigorous and handsome body 
of good habits, almsgiving, prayer, fasting and the like, with- 
out an indwelling soul to give them meaning and worth, stands 
here condemned. "After this manner, therefore" — not always 
in these words but after this style and in this high mood — pray 
and live : "Our Father who art in heaven, may thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven." 



XX 

THE USE OF THE SABBATH 
Mark. 2: 23 — 3:6 

"The seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord thy God — in it 
thou shalt not do any work." Here is the letter of the law ! 
No provision is made for the exceptions commonly named 
touching works of "charity" or of "necessity." "Thou shalt 
not do any work" — a strict enforcement would utterly pre- 
clude the strenuous labors of preachers and teachers who on 
the Sabbath pour the utmost of vitality into their appointed 
work. The letter would kill — it is to the spirit and intent of 
the command that we must look if we would have life. 

"The seventh day" — we have also broken away from the 
particular day named in the old command. The seventh day 
is now the busiest and most laborious day in the week for 
merchants and housekeepers. We have transferred the ob- 
servance to the first day of the week, making it a standing 
commemoration of the fact that our Lord rose from the dead 
"on the first day of the week." The day has been changed 
and the spirit of its observance altered by the coming of Christ. 

The petty, inflexible rules of legalist or Pharisee have little 
worth, but these four great principles suggested in the lesson 
invest the day with an inalienable dignity and worth. 

In the first place human need takes precedence over ritual 
requirement. In an emergency the hungry disciples were right 
in rubbing out the heads of wheat according to a custom pre- 
vailing in the country districts of Palestine, to satisfy their 
need. In an emergency the action of David and his men in 
eating the shew bread ordinarily reserved for the priests was 

116 



THE ONE WHO CAME 117 

approved. In an emergency the need of the brute takes 
precedence over ritual regulation, for Jesus said that men were 
warranted at whatever cost of labor in rescuing an unfortunate 
animal from the pit where it had fallen. 

The Master would not counsel men to spend their Sabbaths 
habitually in plucking heads of wheat or in working with live- 
stock. He did not counsel the use of the shew bread as a regu- 
lar ration for hungry soldiers. But he indicated that each 
situation must be judged on its merits and that the line of 
action must be determined by the humane considerations in- 
volved rather than by blind obedience to ritual requirement. 

In the second place the true observance of the Sabbath is 
not negative but positive. "It is lawful to do good on the 
Sabbath day" — it is unlawful to refuse help when the oppor- 
tunity for service offers. 

Here in the synagogue was a man with a withered hand. 
In Luke's Gospel the physician's eye and the humanitarian in- 
stinct note the fact that it was "his right hand." The organ of 
expert and useful action was crippled, greatly reducing his 
earning power. The Pharisees narrowly watched him to see 
what course Jesus would take. They asked questions if per- 
chance they might find occasion to accuse and discredit him. 

Jesus accepted their challenge. "Rise up and stand forth 
in the midst," he said to the cripple. Then he asked his 
critics : "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? 
To save life or to destroy it?" The manifest justice and reason- 
ableness of his position caused them to "hold their peace." 
To leave a withered hand unhealed would be to do harm 
through neglect. Jesus therefore said boldly, "Stretch forth 
thy hand." And the man's own active faith and obedience 
combined with the redemptive power of the Master made him 
every whit whole on the Sabbath day. 

There are people who think they are keeping the Sabbath 



118 THE MASTER'S WAY 

because they refrain from working or picnicking, from fishing 
or going to the baseball game on that day. But what are they 
doing? Every man is a Sabbath breaker who fails to utilize 
the special opportunities the day brings for the advancement 
of the kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy. To spend 
the day in reading trash or in gossip, in immoderate eating 
and intemperate drinking, in the mood of ill will or sullen 
indifference, is to break the Sabbath. 

To do good on the Sabbath is lawful; to do evil by doing 
nothing is unlawful. To save life, the finer, higher life of 
reverence, trust and obedience on the Sabbath is lawful; to 
destroy or to endanger that life by careless neglect and pro- 
fane habits unfavorable to its culture is unlawful. The whole 
attitude must be positive. We keep the Sabbath by what we 
do rather than by what we avoid. And the responsibility of 
meeting the demands of a positive and useful Sabbath ob- 
servance is the best safeguard against the dissipation which 
would mar the day. 

A third principle is to be found in the fact that the Sabbath 
is to be viewed as an opportunity and not as a burden. "The 
Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath." It 
was made for man as food and water, as air and light were 
made for him — it answers to fundamental need. 

The French in a wild burst of insurgency abolished the 
Christian Sabbath, substituting for it a secular rest day in 
every ten according to the decimal system now prevalent 
among them in weights, measures and coinage. But they 
found that it would not work. They had overlooked the fact 
that the Sabbath was made for man. They were compelled 
to go back and humbly pick it out of the scrap heap where 
they had flung it. They had to re-establish it because of its 
beneficent ministry to human need. 

The Sabbath was made for the physical man, for the toilers 



THE ONE WHO CAME 119 

who rise early on other days, for the salesmen who work late 
in retail stores on Saturday night, for the operatives who are 
shut up in factories during all the week, for all the weary and 
heavy laden. They all look forward to the Sabbath for the 
enjoyment of prolonged sleep, for the chance to breathe the 
outdoor air, for the healing rest which comes by divine 
appointment. 

The Sabbath was made for the domestic man, for the toil- 
ing father whose long hours prevent him from seeing his chil- 
dren during the week except by gaslight, for the hurried busi- 
ness man' who on Sunday deepens his own acquaintance with 
the loved ones in whose interest mainly the business itself is 
conducted. * 

The Sabbath was made for the mind of man — the quiet 
hours with good ( books, the sense of bathing the mind clean in 
real literature instead of soaking it in the muddier waters of 
hastily written dailies, the chance for reflection and meditation 
on the higher, holier phases of human experience all come 
naturally into wholesome Sabbath observance. ' 

The Sabbath was made for the spiritual man — the chance 
to worship under inspiring leadership and in goodly fellow- 
ship, the chance to pray and to serve in a fullness of privilege 
impossible 'on other days, the leisure for rendering more of 
"the little unremembered acts of kindness and of love" all 
come as a priceless boon to the man whose spiritual nature 
under' the pressure of the work-a-day world would otherwise 
fail of its full opportunity. 

The Sabbath was made for every such man, and without it 
under conditions at present inevitable, whole areas of human 
nature would suffer an unspeakable neglect. 'We need not 
split hairs or match pennies with those who ignore Christian 
principle in lowering the standard of Sabbath observance. 
We can meet them with the claim of Christ that the day stands 



120 THE MASTER'S WAY 

for certain opportunities which cannot be ignored by those 
who would possess the more abundant life. The day is not 
imposed by arbitrary authority as a burdensome bit of ritual 
— it is graciously offered as an opportunity to those who seek 
the highest self-realization. 

And finally, the demands of a perfected humanity furnish 
the determining principle touching the use of the day. "The 
Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." The life intent 
solely on physical gratification or social pleasure will never 
know how to use the day aright. The day can only be 'inter- 
preted by that spirit which holds in view the ideal manhood 
manifested in him who is "Lord of the Sabbath." 

This principle lifts the whole question out of narrow bond- 
age to the letter into the high and exacting liberty of the 
spirit. We are summoned by each recurring Sabbath to do 
and to leave undone, to practice and to avoid, to include and 
to exclude, with constant reference to the bearing of our 
decisions upon the attainment of that ideal manhood for our- 
selves and for our fellows. 

"By their fruits ye shall know !" What type of man is 
turned out by Sunday card playing and careless lounging, by 
Sunday golf playing and endless automobiling, by the habit 
of giving up Sunday to social entertainment, to the exclu- 
sion of worship and spiritual service? Does that mode of life 
produce the public-spirited citizen, the philanthropic woman, 
the devoted worker in the charities of the city, the unselfish, 
spiritually-minded Christian? The candid man admits in- 
stantly that careless, easy-going Sabbath usage does not prom- 
ise any steady or considerable supply of that ideal manhood 
or womanhood which is lord of the Sabbath. 

A missionary to the Indians once told them that if they 
planted their corn on Sunday it would not grow. In that per- 
versity of spirit which we all understand, they immediately 



THE ONE WHO CAME 121 

proceeded to test his claim. They planted one acre of corn 
on Sunday; they hoed it on Sunday and "worked it" on no 
other day but Sunday throughout the season. And because 
they took such pains with it, it yielded more corn than any 
other acre on the reservation. Then the Indians laughed at 
the missionary and would not attend church. 

There is a penalty however for hoeing corn on Sunday. It 
reveals itself not in a diminished yield of corn but in the 
stunted growth of "the man with the hoe." The corn may 
grow to its full size, but the man will not grow to his full size 
nor yield those fine fruits of the Spirit which belong to human 
life at its best. There is that in every man which will not 
grow at all unless it be given the advantages for which the 
Sabbath stands. 

The day awaits us as a lovely green spot of leisure and re- 
pair, of higher aspiration and spiritual opportunity. It wel- 
comes all those who plod wearily across the monotonous 
stretches of dusty labor. May men thank God for it and use 
it in gaining that finer manhood which stands as its ultimate 
lord. 



MALIGNANT UNBELIEF 

Mark 3 : 2 o-35 

The reactions which the work of Christ produced in cert 
quarters testify to the deep-rooted evil he came to remove. It 
was '*a strong man's house" which he entered and spiritual 
vigor of the first order was demanded for the binding of that 
strong man. Here in this passage the evil purpose which 
spurned his ministry and finally nailed him to the cross began 
to show its hand. 

'"He came unto his own" — his own kinsmen — "and his own 
received him not." They said, "He is beside himself" — he is 
crazy. "He came unto his own" — his own nation — "and the 
scribes which came down from Jerusalem" (for Judea was 
already arraying itself against the judgment of Galilee upon 
his Messianic claims) "said, He hath Beelzebub.''' They in- 
sisted that he himself was possessed of the devil. What 
meaner charge could blind, unreasoning malice make ! 

"He is beside himself" — judged by the current standards 
the charge was true ! He was what the machinist calls "an 
eccentric." The eccentric in mechanics is a wheel which does 
not turn on the usual circle — it follows its own method in the 
curve it describes. When a Russian nobleman of our dav 
undertook a literal and painstaking obedience to the words of 
Christ as he understood them, men said. "He is crazy." 

The method of the Master indicated that he had regard to 

another center than that found in the current practice. The 

popular answer to the famous question propounded by the 

stminster divines would have read in that day, "The chief 

122 



THE ONE WHO CAME 123 

end of man is to advance himself and to enjoy his personal 
success forever." The self-centered life would not have 
seemed to the contemporaries of Jesus "eccentric" — they never 
would have said of such an one, "He is beside himself." The 
pursuit of self-interest would have seemed to them entirely 
rational. 

But another mind was in Christ. He did nothing through 
strife or vainglory. He looked not on his own things but upon 
the things of others. He thought it no prize to be grasped 
to be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation. 
He took upon himself the form, the spirit and the task of the 
servant and being found in fashion as a man he went about 
doing good. He humbled himself and became obedient even 
unto the death of the cross. He was "eccentric" in that his 
life was not centered after the manner prevalent in his time. 

He turned many things end for end and upside down. He 
bade men love their enemies and not their friends only. He 
insisted that they should do good and not harm to those who 
despitefully used them. He said "the poor in spirit" were the 
fortunate and blessed of earth, and that ultimately the gentle, 
not the grasping, would inherit all there is. He said that if 
a man saved his life he would lose it; that security could be 
gained only by losing, that is to say, investing, the life in de- 
votion and service. In these strange paradoxes he indicated 
his philosophy. It was a complete reversal of many of the 
current judgments. We are not surprised that his own kins- 
men deemed him mad. 

But when the prevailing practice is wrong side up it must be 
"turned upside down" to make it right. When moral judg- 
ments are awry they must be reversed if we are to reach the 
truth. When the boldness of some claim startles us out of our 
accustomed ruts of thinking, it is wise to ask, "Is the author 
of that word mad or are we?" It may be that an equally 



124 THE MASTER'S WAY 

radical reversal of judgment may be demanded from us. 

The stupid bystanders on the day of Pentecost witnessing 
the glories of spiritual victory could find no better interpreta- 
tion than this — "These men are full of new wine." The ser- 
vant was not above his Lord — they called the Master "crazy" 
and his disciples "drunken." 

But the Scribes added a dash of malice and temper to their 
moral stupidity. "He hath Beelzebub and by the prince of the 
devils he casteth out devils." This Beelzebub was a heathen 
deity, the god of the flies, and the charge therefore contained 
a peculiarly offensive sneer at the beneficent work accom- 
plished by Jesus of Nazareth. The evil forces were manifestly 
subject to him, and his enemies therefore insisted that he must 
be in collusion with Satan, the head of the kingdom of evil. 

In a few swift strokes Jesus showed the absurdity of such a 
claim. "How can Satan cast out Satan ?" Will a house stand 
when it is divided against itself ? They might feel sure that 
the devil was not committing suicide. The kingdom divided 
against itself cannot withstand its own speedy dissolution. 

The fact that the evil forces in many lives there in Galilee 
were being held in leash and were being cast out testified to 
the fact that a stronger man had entered Satan's house and 
having bound him was now defeating his purposes. The Mas- 
ter here indicates the source of his power to bless — it lay in 
his own personal righteousness. In him the forces of evil 
were naught and over him Satan had no power. 

Jesus was grieved by the turpitude of those who made an 
open revolt against good by attributing his beneficent work to 
the prince of devils. "Woe unto them that call evil good and 
good evil ; that put darkness for light and light for darkness ; 
that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." The wicked 
reversal of all sound judgment attributing good deeds to an 
evil source issued in a moral condition which Jesus called "an 



THE ONE WHO CAME 125 

eternal sin." It produced a moral callousness which finds no 
forgiveness either in this world or in the world to come because 
it neither seeks nor desires forgiveness. 

The unpardonable sin here suggested is not the utterance 
of any technical word of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; 
it is not the commission of some particularly heinous act of 
disobedience to God's law; it is rather the gradual fixing of 
the moral life in a false attitude by that type of perversity 
which Jesus found in those Pharisees who would refer his 
good deeds to Beelzebub. At last there is no capacity left for 
moral response. The man who is anxious and troubled lest 
he may have committed the unpardonable sin may rest assured 
that he has not committed it — his very unrest and moral sen- 
sitiveness proclaim the fact of life within. No penitent soul 
is ever guilty of that sin. 

The very essence of Christ's own righteousness and spiritual 
efficiency lay in the enduement of the Holy Spirit. He was 
"filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb." "The Spirit 
descended on him as a dove," at his baptism in Jordan. He 
"returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee," binding up 
the broken-hearted and accomplishing deliverance for them that 
were bruised. To attribute the efficiency of his efforts to the 
prince of devils was indeed to blaspheme against the Holy 
Spirit and to be in danger of an eternal condemnation. 

The peril of attributing that which is good to an evil source 
is as modern as the morning paper. It is the belief of many 
wise and good men that the social unrest of our day is due to 
the functioning of the divine spirit in human society. The 
discontent is divinely ordered because we are in "a far coun- 
try" wasting human values innumerable by our unworthy 
mode of life. Men and women are "in want" of a more 
equitable share of the good things they have helped to create — 
and God would have them feel and cherish that want. There 



126 THE MASTER'S WAY 

is a widespread insistence upon a more democratic spirit in the 
control of industry — and this of itself is an assertion of the 
worth and dignity of human nature in whatever walk of life 
it may be found. 

It were easy to brand all this unrest as blind and ungrate- 
ful ; to denounce these resolute demands as selfish and inso- 
lent; to offer an affront to this rising tide of democracy by 
terming it "the voice of the mob" attacking the forces of peace 
and order. And this characterization comes perilously near 
to being akin to the sin of the Scribes of old when they at- 
tributed that which was good to the action of the spirit of evil. 
A more careful analysis and a more complete synthesis of the 
social aspirations now becoming vocal in all lands would in- 
dicate that a strong man has entered the house and that he is 
destined to bind the forces of evil which have been working 
injury to the weak. He is insisting upon the rule of those 
principles which are at once humane and divine. 

Sore punishment is decreed for those "who have trodden 
under foot the Son of God and have counted the blood of the 
covenant an unholy thing, and have done despite unto the 
spirit of grace." Sore punishment awaits those who ruth- 
lessly trample upon the moral stirrings which would lift the 
unprivileged section of the race into a sense of its real kin- 
ship with God. The same rebuke will be given to those who 
speak contemptuously of that spirit of sacrificial devotion 
which is the blood of a new covenant, or who do despite to 
that spirit of grace which is causing many who have been 
sitting in darkness to see a great light and to walk in the 
strength of a brave hope. 

It was announced to Jesus in the midst of his searching 
rebuke to his perverted detractors that his mother and his 
brethren were seeking him. He had no word of disparagement 
for the value of those relationships which are after the flesh. 



THE ONE WHO CAME 127 

Almost his last word from the cross was one of thoughtful 
provision for Mary, his mother. But he recognized the fact 
that moral relationships transcend family ties, even as they 
underlie our physical kinship, giving it worth and stability. 
"Who is my mother or my brethren?" He swept his hand 
across the face of the company which had come to believe on 
him, and added : "Behold my mother and my brethren. Who- 
soever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother." 

The sense of spiritual kinship is deeper and more lasting. 
It takes precedence over the accidents of birth. It rises supe- 
rior to the considerations of age and sex. When we live the 
filial life, doing the will of God, we enter into the family of 
the Father in heaven and into the enjoyment of those higher 
kinships from which we shall go no more out. 



XXII 

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN MEATS 

Mark 7: 1-23 

"Then came the Pharisees and certain of the Scribes and 
when they saw his disciples eat bread with unwashen hands, 
they found fault." The blue-blooded ecclesiastics, more care- 
ful of their traditions than of moral values, more intent upon 
religious technique than upon the weightier matters of justice 
and mercy, were on hand to make trouble. They were power- 
less to heal the sick or to restore the sinful, but they could 
"find fault." Their noses were long and sharp in scenting the 
least departure from their burdensome traditions. 

Their objection to the unwashed hands of the disciples was 
not hygienic or sanitary — it was based altogether on cere- 
monial grounds. AYhen a high and dry Pharisee came in from 
the street or from any manner of contact with his fellows he 
scrupulously washed off the ceremonial defilement which might 
possibly have fastened upon him. Some uncircumcised Gen- 
tile might have touched elbows with him in the crowd or 
allowed the wanton air to blow directly from his objectionable 
person to the sacred form of the Pharisee. The purpose of 
this fastidious care was not physical cleanliness, which is alto- 
gether desirable, but a ceremonial purity. 

They had made religion an affair of washing cups and pots, 
of ceremonial cleansing of vessels and of tables. The great 
vital things in religious faith and observance were overlaid 
with an elaborate regime having to do with artificial distinc- 
tions between clean and unclean meats, between ceremonial 
sanctity and ceremonial defilement. The Pharisees had exalted 

128 



THE ONE WHO CAME 129 

ecclesiastical etiquette far above righteousness of heart. And 
generations of this ill-directed emphasis had produced a race 
of men of whom Christ said with telling accuracy, "This people 
honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." 

The system as a system stands in the same category with 
the highly developed scheme of taboo found in the Islands of 
Polynesia. In Hawaii it could only be imposed by the priests 
and was intimately associated with religious faith. But else- 
where in Polynesia the kings and chiefs exercised the power 
of taboo and used it oftentimes to serve the ends of ambition 
and avarice. The selfish appetites of men led to the making 
of the flesh of pigs, fowls, turtle and several kinds of fish 
taboo to women — these dainties were reserved entirely for 
gods and men. Mothers after childbirth were taboo and so 
were their newborn children. One of the strictest taboos was 
incurred by those who handled the body of a dead person or 
assisted at the funeral. It was a system which readily lent 
itself to the selfish designs of kings and priests. 

In its inception the Hebrew system of purifications on re- 
ligious grounds may have had some value in educating an un- 
developed people. The utilization of these various observances 
as symbols may have aided in inculcating in their minds a 
clearer conception of holiness at a period when abstract ethical 
conceptions would have made no effective appeal. But with 
the writings of the great prophets before them that educative 
value belonging more properly to the kindergarten stage of a 
nation's development, had passed and the painstaking insistence 
upon the fully developed system of minute observance had 
become altogether trivial. 

The Master allowed and encouraged his disciples to dis- 
regard those empty restrictions. To the high church party of 
that day this seemed the most violent heresy subversive of the 
entire method by which their conceit and their purses had 



130 THE MASTER'S WAY 

alike profited. With a show of moral indignation and of out- 
raged sanctity worthy of a better cause, they called the atten- 
tion of Jesus to the delinquencies of his associates — ''Why 
walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders 
— they eat bread with unwashen hands !'' The undiscerning 
ecclesiastics had learned to look on the outward appearance 
but not on the heart; they could see the hands of these dis- 
ciples; they could not see the new peace and joy attained by 
an experience of the more vital truths of religious faith. 

We feel here the first drops in that coming shower which 
developed into a storm of opposition when Paul the apostle 
of spiritual liberty found it necessary to withstand the reac- 
tionary Peter to the face because he had shown a vacillating 
attitude regarding this very matter. ''For before certain came 
from James, he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were 
come he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who 
were of the circumcision. " O foolish Peter and foolish ad- 
herents of ceremonial detail in every land and time, who hath 
bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth ! Received ye 
the Spirit by attention to ceremony or by the hearing of faith? 

It required a vision and a voice from heaven to persuade 
Peter that he was not to call "common or unclean" what "God 
had cleansed'' in his own beneficent purpose. He must see a 
great sheet let down from heaven containing all manner of 
beasts and birds and creeping things and hear the injunction, 
''Rise, Peter, kill and eat'" before he would find himself in a 
mood to welcome and to serve "one of another nation." He 
had to be providentially prepared for the appeal of Cornelius 
else he would not have said, 'T perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him 
and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." 

''Meat commendeth us not to God. Neither if we eat are 
we the better nor if we eat not are we the worse/' where the 



THE ONE WHO CAME 131 

distinction in meats is based on ceremonial grounds. It is not 
that which entereth into a man which defileth him, but that 
which having found place in his heart proceedeth out of him 
in speech and action. From out the hearts of men "proceed 
evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covet- 
ousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blas- 
phemy, pride, foolishness — all these evil things come from 
within and defile the man." 

The Master stood plainly and strongly for the quality of 
inwardness which came to be the cardinal principle in the 
Gospel proclaimed by his leading apostle. He knew that "the 
kingdom of God is not meat and drink" taken in strict accord- 
ance with a carefully prescribed ritual "but righteousness and 
peace and joy in the divine spirit." And when Paul entered 
into the method of Jesus, as he did more fully than any of the 
original Twelve, he who had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees, 
observing "the traditions of the elders" after the strictest 
fashion, cried out in his joyous sense of spiritual liberty, "The 
spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin and 
death." 

The Master knew what relentless opposition his course would 
provoke. But having counted the cost he set himself like a 
flint against the whole method of "turning religion," as Dr. 
Nehemiah Boynton puts it, "into an affair of dish washing," 
He would make his followers free, untrammeled moral agents 
loyal to that law of God which is within. He would write his 
precepts upon their hearts and reproduce the spirit of his own 
matchless life in their inward parts. He would lift them out 
of that bondage to the letter which is fatal to peace and joy 
into the high and exacting liberty of the Spirit wherewith he 
makes men free. 

When the Pharisees found fault with his disciples because 



132 THE MASTER'S WAY 

of their inattention to minor requirements in the tradition of 
the elders, the Master turned the tables upon his critics by- 
showing that they were unfaithful to the real implications of 
that system to which they professed such devoted loyalty. 

These sticklers for religious etiquette were in the habit of 
relieving themselves from their filial obligations where these 
had become exacting by a kind of hocus-pocus. They took 
refuge in a religious bankruptcy act provided by "the traditions 
of the elders" according to which if the talismanic word "Cor- 
ban" was uttered over any material possession which might 
naturally have been used for the comfort of one's needy 
parents, the selfish son could retain it without incurring the 
sense of having violated the commandment of God touching 
the duty of children to their parents. What a wretched bit of 
moral shuffling it was ! 

In seeking to pierce through the thick hide of their spiritual 
conceit and moral callousness the Master made his words 
plain almost to the point of offense, but there was cause. 
"What a man eats," he said, "enters not into his heart but into 
his stomach and goeth out into the draught. This defiles not 
the man." But the principles of action which a man cherishes 
are resident in his heart and when these are selfish, mean and 
cruel, they defile the man. 

By these pungent words he struck at the very root of tradi- 
tionalism and of ceremonialism. He would have religious 
observance the fresh expression of the divine spirit as it func- 
tions in the hearts of men intent upon worship and service 
and not a mere load of encumbering usage carried along from 
age to age unable to vindicate itself by any showing made in 
terms of spiritual value. He would have the religious life of 
the day rest its weight upon the manifestation of "righteous- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 133 

ness and peace and joy" rather than upon scrupulous devotion 
to ceremonies and sacraments. 

Have we understood and observed all these things? When 
we make more of the amount of water used in baptizing a 
man than of the inward purity of his motives or the unselfish 
devotion manifest in his conduct, then we are again washing 
the cups and the pots. When we test a minister's claim to 
spiritual efficiency by the particular method of his ordination 
rather than by scrutiny of his qualities of mind and heart, we 
are exalting the traditions of the elders above the spiritual 
verities involved. God is not worshiped chiefly by men's hands 
as though he needed any such thing — he is honored by men's 
hearts where they are possessed of loving obedience toward 
him and of kindly good will toward all mankind. 



XXIII 
THE MASTER'S ESTIMATE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 

Matt. II : i- 19 

John was in prison. He was despised and rejected of men. 
When he was arraigned by Herod, they esteemed him stricken 
and smitten of God. But he was wounded for the transgres- 
sion of others ; he was bruised for his valiant devotion to right- 
eousness. He was in the profoundest sense of the word "a 
forerunner." 

He was depressed by his surroundings. He had suffered 
the sting of unjust treatment. He may well have felt that 
God had forsaken him. His faith in the speedy fulfillment of 
the great hopes he had expressed was temporarily dimmed by 
the harsh treatment accorded him. And it is not improbable 
that the gentler methods of the Messiah seemed disappointing 
to one who had pictured the "Coming One" as wielding 
the "ax" and calling down "unquenchable fire" in a sudden 
and terrible retribution visited upon wrongdoers. At any rate 
John was burdened by a sore uncertainty touching the messi- 
anic claims of Jesus. 

From his prison cell he sent two of his disciples to Jesus 
with this plaintive query, "Art thou he that should come or do 
we look for another ?" "Another," altogether different in kind, 
for the word employed is "eteron/' not "allon," which would 
mean another of the same type. John longed for "One that 
should come," for that ultimate and supreme manifestation of 
the divine to which reason and conscience might look up and 
say, "Thy Kingdom come." He was waiting for a final word. 

134 






THE ONE WHO CAME 135 

The answer of Jesus is characteristic of his whole method. 
"By their fruits ye shall know," was the canon of judgment he 
had taught his disciples. He is content to have his own mis- 
sion judged by its fruits. He makes no arbitrary claim; he 
offers no dogmatic statement about his character; he cites no 
ancient Scripture in support of his title to the office of Messiah. 
"Go and shew John again those things which we do hear and 
see." On Carmel it was said, "Let the God who answereth by 
fire be God." In Galilee it is said, "Let the one who can say, 
'The blind receive their sight and the lame walk and the poor 
have good tidings preached to them,' be accepted as the Com- 
ing One." In this twentieth century let the faith which an- 
swers in hearts renewed and wills strengthened, in homes 
sweetened and in whole nations directed toward the higher 
ends of human existence stand fast and bear rule ! The re- 
ligious claim in any age must submit to the test of achievement. 

Here are credentials which can be known and read of all 
men. It requires an expert to pass upon the intricate philo- 
sophical and theological questions which are discussed by the 
schoolmen. But the testimony of the man who can say, "I 
was blind, now I see" ; the word of the man who can say, "My 
deaf ears have been unstopped"; the joyous witness of those 
who by faith in the Son of God are trampling under foot the 
temptations which once lorded it over their lives : the fine in- 
tegrity of those who stand up without flinching in the per- 
formance of duties which they formerly shirked — this sort of 
testimony can be weighed and valued by the veriest wayfarer. 
When men are uncertain as to whether they should accept the 
One who has come, show them the facts. 

It is significant that this recital of results achieved climaxed 
not in some wonder yet more startling than the opening of 
blind eyes or the healing of the leper but in the fact that "the 



136 THE MASTER'S WAY 

poor have the gospel preached to them." And what is "the 
gospel" as the Master uses the words here? It is the good 
news that God loves us and has manifested his love for us in 
Jesus Christ and because he loves us, we should love one an- 
other. Go and tell the poor people that, carrying the effective 
credential with you in your own attitude toward their need. 
Let the hungry deprived of an equitable share of the good 
things they have helped to produce know that they are not 
forgotten. Wherever this original and effective apologetic 
for the Christian faith is delivered we witness the steady 
coming of the Kingdom. 

W r hen the messengers had departed Jesus entered upon a 
sympathetic evaluation of John. The multitudes had thronged 
to hear him when John preached in the wilderness. "What 
went ye out into the wilderness to see?" A reed shaken with 
the wind? A man clothed in soft raiment? A prophet of the 
current, conventional type? He was none of these. He was 
"more than a prophet" as his contemporaries lightly used that 
term. He combined the fierce hatred of wickedness which 
belonged to Elijah, the uncompromising insistence upon jus- 
tice of Micah, and the clear, strong sense of spiritual reality 
of an Isaiah. He was among the greatest born of women. 

His greatness, however, was not so much personal as official. 
He was the immediate forerunner of the Christ, the herald 
who girded up his loins to run before the chariot of the King. 
And with his keener insight the Master gives his own search- 
ing accurate appraisement of the stern, strong man. "Among 
them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater 
than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the 
Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he." It was the testimony 
of Christ to the superiority of that order of life he had come 
to establish. He cordially recognized the greatness of a per- 



THE ONE WHO CAME 137 

sonality living under an imperfect preparatory order and then 
in the same breath asserts the higher worth of that which is 
to come. 

He that is least greater than he ! Aye, verily, in immediate 
personal privilege ! The sophomore is greater than Socrates 
not in personal ability or in present moral attainment but in 
his opportunities, in the richness of the advantages which sur- 
round him, in the very profusion of stimulus and aid for wise 
and effective action. 

The message of the Gospel is a higher and a finer message 
than that uttered by John. When morally awakened men came 
to him saying, "What shall we do then?" John's word was, 
"He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none." 
"Exact no more than that which is appointed you." "Do vio- 
lence to no man." 

This is good as far as it goes. But how far short it falls 
of the word found upon the lips of that morally awakened man 
in the far country who said when he came to himself, "I will 
arise and go to my father." The life of filial fellowship which 
stands at the heart of the gospel message opens a vaster pros- 
pect to the aspiring soul than is to be found in any word of 
the great forerunner. 

The mode of life enjoined upon us in the Gospel is a higher 
mode than that espoused by John. "John came neither eating 
nor drinking." He was an ascetic, dwelling apart in the desert, 
subsisting on locusts and wild honey, disdaining the ordinary 
relationships and associations of human intercourse. His life 
was magnificent as a protest against current evils— it becomes 
sadly defective when we look to.it for a constructive program 
of action. 

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking." He came 
building his life evenly and steadily into an actual and reason- 



1 55 THE MASTER'S WAY 

able human order. He was a concrete and not an abstract 
idealist. He took the familiar material of common life and 
showed its finer implications. He interpreted those relations 
in which men and women stand and mus: cvef stand on this 
homely earth, investing them with new dignity and meaning 
is he revealed their bearing upon the unfolding of a divine 
purpose. He made men aware of their souls right where they 
stood and of the needs of those souls and of the unseen sources 
of supply for that need near at hand until those who belie- re : 
im found themselves at home in a world where God the 
Father is above all and in all and through all. 

1 The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, 
I = not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be but finding first 
What may be, then find how to make that fair 
Up to our means." 

It is the everlasting difference between the abstract and the 
cone re te idealist so effectively brought out by William DeYVitt 
Hyde where he sets Plato and Aristotle over against each 
other in philosophy, Burne- Jones and Watts in art, Wendell 
Phillips and Abraham Lincoln in the work of reform, Mat- 
thew Arnold and Robert Browning in poetry and President 
Nott and Cyr^s Hamlin in the appeal and the conduct of 
: reign missionary effort. "Plato sees what might be and 
condemns all that is because it falls short of this. Aristotle 
sees what is and strives to bring the best that may be out of 
that" 

The stem, strong man whose words had a tang in them like 
horseradish rendered his own appointed service and entered 
into his reward. The Master indicated John's spiritual kin- 
ship with the rugged Tishbire of old "If ye will receive it this 
is Elijah who was to come/' Jesus also sensed his apprecia- 
tion of the valued service which such harsh instruments of the 



THE ONE WHO CAME 139 

divine purpose can render. "The Kingdom of Heaven suf- 
fereth violence and the violent take it by force." The men 
who are veritable Gatling guns in energy are not dispossessed 
of their blood and iron when they enlist in the Kingdom of 
Heaven. Their guns are but trained more accurately upon the 
enemy. "Saul breathing out threatenings and slaughter against 
the disciples of the Lord" once apprehended of Christ becomes 
the apostle who in his spiritual passion "could wish himself 
accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according 
to the flesh." The violent consecrate their violence and by the 
sheer force of their aspiration cause the Kingdom to advance. 
The Master thus pronounces the final eulogy upon John the 
Baptist who was soon to suffer a violent death at the hands of 
wicked Herod. He reserves his full approval for that higher 
order of life where men do not strive nor cry, where they do 
not rely upon power or might, but achieve their victories by the 
supremacy of that Spirit which is divine. "So doth the greater 
glory dim the less." 



XXIV 

THE TRAGIC DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 

Mark 6-' 14-29 

Herod lived off the turnpike of spiritual effort. He would 
not readily come in touch with the work done by Jesus of 
Nazareth. When he first heard, therefore, of this new prophet 
who was showing himself "mighty in word and in deed," he 
was troubled. His first thought was — "It is John whom I 
beheaded — he is risen from the dead." 

He was utterly astray in his diagnosis. His own blind super- 
stition and his guilty conscience framed up for him that specter 
which haunted his hours. His own guilty memories produced 
the sense of a ghostly presence emerging out of the unseen 
world to again rebuke him for his sin. "It is John," he whis- 
pered in his moral distress. Thus at the feast the troubled 
heart of Macbeth caused him to see the ghost of Banquo sit- 
ting in his own chair which was empty to all eyes but his own. 
And Lady Macbeth smelled blood on a hand which was as 
white as her own fair face paled with fear and remorse. 

What a testimony to the enduring influence of that moral 
leader of whom Jesus said, "Among them born of women 
there hath not risen a greater!" John being dead yet spoke 
to the consciences of men. The good men do lives in them 
and after them. It is a striking tribute to the power of per- 
sonality that the report of these mighty works wrought by the 
prophet of Galilee should set Herod muttering and whispering 
his fears as to the reappearance of that stern champion of 
righteousness who had rebuked him for the evil in his life. 

140 



THE ONE WHO CAME 141 

It recalled to Mark the tragic end of the forerunner's life 
and he here records the grewsome circumstances surround- 
ing the death of John. Herod had taken his brother's wife in 
defiance of the law of God and man in that land and had made 
her his own. John the Baptist had withstood him to the face. 
"It is not lawful," he said, "for thee to have her." He showed 
his moral courage in thus opposing the pleasure of one who 
wielded the power of life and of death. But John was not 
one to flinch. He could arraign the ungodly men of his day, 
in general terms calling them "a generation of vipers." He 
could also face the individual and pointing to his sin, say "Thou 
art the man," which is the harder, the higher and the holier 
task. 

When Nathan stands before David the king denouncing his 
cruelty and adultery; when Elijah meets Ahab as the oppres- 
sor is about to take possession of the wrongfully acquired 
vineyard; when John Knox voices the conscience of Scotland 
in his opposition to Queen Mary; and when John the Baptist 
faces Herod with the stern word, "It is not lawful," we have 
a prophetic succession ready at its own peril to speak the 
straight word to the man who needs it most. It is easy to 
reproach an entire congregation as being "miserable sinners" 
in whom there is no spiritual health — it is hard to tell some 
powerful man his fault "between thee and him alone." 

Herodias, the guilty partner in the king's crime, would have 
had the prophet silenced beyond all hope of further utterance. 
But "Herod feared John knowing that he was a just man and 
holy." He had John imprisoned yet was unwilling that his 
wife's anger should put the brave man to death. It was the 
unwilling and perhaps superstitious tribute which moral cow- 
ardice pays to virtue. Therefore in the gloomy fortress of 
Machserus John was entombed. 



142 THE MASTER'S WAY 

But there came a day when Herod celebrated his birthday 
with a great supper. "The lords, the high captains and the 
chief estates of Galilee" were gathered at his banquet board. 
It was a Roman custom at a certain point in the feast "when 
men had well drunk" to bring in the dancing girls even as the 
geisha girls form one of the elements of entertainment at 
showy dinners in Japan. The dancing was imitative and 
licentious — it bore no relation to the wholesome forms of 
recreation known to our high-minded youths and maidens. 
It was commonly done by paid professionals whose trade was 
such that they had no modesty to lose. 

But at Herod's feast when the curtains were drawn and the 
dancer appeared a thrill of surprise and of ugly gratification 
possessed the hearts of the half drunken revellers. It was 
Salome, the beautiful daughter of Herodias! It is probable 
that she had been urged to make this unseemly display of her 
charms by her own wicked mother in the prosecution of an 
unholy design. The jaded appetites of these banqueters were 
whetted by this fresh sensation and their rude appreciation 
testified to Herod that he had made a great hit in the enter- 
tainment provided. 

Heated by wine, intoxicated by their flattering applause, be- 
guiled himself by the wanton dancing of a handsome girl, he 
burst out in maudlin fashion, "Ask of me whatever thou wilt 
and I will give it thee." The girl herself was confused and 
staggered by his wild offer and he repeated it with an oath — 
"Whatsoever thou shalt ask . . . unto the half of my king- 
dom !" 

Thus aroused to a sense of the greatness of his offer she 
went out to be coached by her mother. "What shall I ask?" 
There was something more precious to Herodias than the half 
of any kingdom and that was the full gratification of her desire 



THE ONE WHO CAME 143 

for revenge. "Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned." 
The stern prophet in yonder gloomy prison had uttered words 
in condemnation of her sin which scorched her soul. Her 
answer to the girl's question was swift and cruel. "What shall 
I ask?" "The head of John." And that there should be no 
mistake about his having been beheaded she demanded that 
the head be brought to her "on a platter," served up to her 
coarse appetite for fierce revenge. 

When the dancing girl came with that horrible request the 
king was exceeding sorry. He had made a wild and dangerous 
vow. When wine is in, wit is out. When men are inflamed 
by immodest displays, purposes are formed which issue in 
actions more base and cruel than extravagant indulgence in 
meat and drink. He was exceeding sorry yet for his oath's 
sake and for their sakes who sat with him he would not refuse. 
Stiff in the pride of his own foolish word and craven in his 
fear of those evil associates, he lacked the moral courage to 
make a wise retreat. 

How many young men take courses of action which their 
own judgment and conscience disallow because of a fancied 
sense of loyalty to some mad vow ! The bravado of persistence 
in a wrong course is not courage nor firmness, but cowardice 
and pigheaded obstinacy. Happy the open-minded man who is 
ready to be wiser and better today than he was yesterday or 
even an hour ago. He gains much by having the courage to 
make a wise retreat. 

Herod would not go back. He sent an executioner to the 
prison and had John beheaded. He had the head brought on 
a platter. He gave it to the damsel and the damsel gave it to 
her mother. Now let the grudge of this guilty woman feed 
itself fat upon that horrid sight! She had been unwilling to 
have the promise of Herod that he would execute John, for 



144 THE MASTER'S WAY 

on the morrow when he was sober and when his lords and high 
captains were no longer about him with their flattering ap- 
plause, he might still recede from his oath. 

It is a tragic story ! But given a mean and cowardly official 
dressed in a little brief authority ! Given a woman savage and 
vindictive ! Given a prophet who stood as the fearless cham- 
pion of righteousness facing the wicked pair with the law of 
God deep written in his heart, and you have all the ingredients 
for a tragedy ! And the working of the moral forces, good 
and evil, there suggested wrought from those materials this 
horrible event which has been spread upon canvas and retold 
in verse with somber effect. 

The world cannot spare its supply of men of the type here 
indicated. The prophet must stand ever and anon in some 
august presence it may be and say in accents unmistakable, 
"It is not lawful." When the resources of a country created 
for the comfort of many are being rapidly, recklessly, waste- 
fully exploited by the few for the few; when the mad race 
for material gain shows itself without regard for the human 
values at stake; when under pressure of the desire for large 
and quick returns the pace of industry is made too sharp for 
the endurance of the average man ; when vast combinations of 
capital control legislation and the decisions of courts in their 
own selfish interest, then it becomes necessary for many a 
prophet of the living God at the risk of his pew rents, if not of 
his head, to say boldly, "It is not lawful." 

In Herod's case it was "the lust of the flesh and the pride 
of life" in the presence of his riotous companions which im- 
pelled him to his evil course. The outer wrappings of evil 
may change like the passing styles, but the essential spirit of 
evil abides. The lust of the flesh and the pride of life are still 
making war upon the finer modes of life. They still strike off 



THE ONE WHO CAME 145 

the head of many an impulse toward a nobler course of action. 
And in the presence of the wanton cruelty of lust and greed 
and ugly pride, it must be "not peace but a sword." 

Herodias thought she had silenced John. But that bloody 
head upon the platter has spoken to more men and has spoken 
more potently than did his voice in life. 

Herod had his unlawful wife. Herodias had the head of 
the one whose rebuke had made her wince. The disciples had 
the mutilated corpse which they took for decent burial. Yet 
the world is richer and better for the brave, heroic life of that 
fearless advocate of righteousness, snuffed out though it was 
in tragic fashion. He was indeed "a radical" in that he laid 
his ax at the root of the trouble and his rightful successor is 
needed now on every field of moral effort. 



BOOK II 
HIS METHOD 



XXV 

THE RULER'S DAUGHTER 

Mark 5 : 21-43 

We call him " The Great Physician " because he came 
to make men whole in the whole sense of that term. He 
ate with publicans and sinners because they needed him 
most. He busied himself with the sick because their 
claim on his compassion took precedence. 

As it was then, is now and shall be for years to come, 
the people came more readily to be healed of their diseases 
than to be forgiven of their iniquities. We are not to be 
surprised nor disturbed when the same people today throng 
the Christian Science Temple because relief is there prom- 
ised for their headaches and their indigestion while they 
show themselves reluctant in seeking those profounder 
spiritual influences which are designed to cure them of 
their selfishness. 

"Behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the syna- 
gogue." It was the first time that a " ruler of the syna- 
gogue ■" had shown an open interest in the Master's work 
and all three of the synoptic Gospels remarked upon it. 
His social position and the fact that his class had been 
standing rigidly against the work of this teacher of Naza- 
reth made the incident notable. " Have any of the rulers 
believed on him " — this was the challenge which the eccle- 
siastics at Jerusalem were able to make long after this 
occurrence. 

But the desperate need of Jairus broke down the 
barriers of prejudice. The necessity which could not be 

149 



150 THE MASTER'S WAY 

met from any other known source sent him to the feet of 
the Saviour. Luke portrays the desperate situation in a 
terse, graphic sentence — "He had one only daughter, 
about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying." It was 
no time to stand on theological ceremony or to insist upon 
the exclusive items of ritual. The proud ruler of the syna- 
gogue fell down at the feet of the Galilean " and besought 
him greatly. Lay thy hands on her . . . and she shall 
live." And Jesus at once went with him toward the home 
of pain. 

But on the way he was arrested by another appeal. 
There was a woman who had been in a pitiable condition 
for twelve years. She had spent her all on doctor's bills 
and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse. Her own 
womanly modesty, the nature of her trouble and the fact 
of her being ceremonially unclean according to the Leviti- 
cal law combined to make her unwilling to face the Master 
openly with an appeal for help. She hoped to creep up 
behind him unnoticed and gain what she sought — " If I 
may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole." 

It was a blind, ignorant, superstitious sort of faith. 
It belongs in the same list with the desire to touch the 
alleged fragments of the true cross or the Holy Coat at 
Treves or to stand in the grotto at Lourdes made famous 
by the legend of the appearance of the Virgin. The 
woman's faith was not orthodox; it was not rational; it 
was not regular and conventional, but it was real. And 
because it was real the Master honored it, overlaid though 
it was with blind superstition. He stood ready to welcome 
and to reward her imperfect faith and to lead it forth by 
the right way into something better. The timid, ignorant 
touch of faith should not fall to the ground unnoticed. 

When she touched the edge of his robe Jesus felt im- 
mediately that benefit had gone forth from him. His 



HIS METHOD 151 

personal help could not go forth without conscious effort 
on his part nor without personal cost. " Who touched 
me?" he said. The touch of faith claiming help for its 
need had differentiated itself from the careless push and 
jostle of the street, even as the look of faith and the sin- 
cere appeal of thoughtful devotion differentiate themselves 
from the more general and formal worship of the crowd. 

Then the woman, with fearful joy knowing what had 
been wrought in her, fell down before him and told him the 
truth. He was content with a simple faith, but it must 
find open expression. Her confession may have added 
nothing to her bodily health which was already secured, 
but it did add to her spiritual joy and to his that she 
acknowledged the blessing which was hers. And the Mas- 
ter said, " Thy faith hath made thee whole." It was not 
the touch of her hand upon the hem of his robe; it was 
the faith in her soul which secured the result. And then 
as she acknowledged the benefit received, the Master be- 
stowed upon her what might be termed " a second blessing." 
11 Go in peace and be whole of thy plague." 

What a useful picture of human need asserting its 
rightful claim upon the divine compassion! " We have not 
an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling 
of our infirmities. He was in all points tempted like as we 
are. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace 
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of 
need." 

What a picture as well of that life whose helpfulness 
was so manifest as to prompt the touch and the appeal of 
faith! In the light of this occurrence it is for every man to 
ask himself, " How is human need affected by my presence? 
When any one meets me incidentally what is the result? 
What does he rub off of me in his casual contact? How 
far is he prompted to touch the hem of my mind or my 



152 THE MASTER'S WAY 

heart in the hope of receiving help? " It is a tragedy for 
any life to move among the throngs and in the presence of 
need and not elicit ever and anon the touch of faith. 

The anxious father was sorely tried by this delay but 
Jesus reassured him — "Fear not, only believe." It is a 
note which sounds clear and strong throughout the Mas- 
ter's entire teaching. "Let not your heart be troubled — 
believe in God." "Have faith in God — all things are 
possible to him that believe th." 

When he reached the house he allowed no one to enter 
the sick room save the parents of the child and " Peter and 
James and John." He drew around him always in a closer 
fellowship these three as an inner circle of trusted inti- 
mates. On the Mount of Transfiguration, in Gethsemane 
and in all the greater crises of his life it was the same. 
There in that sympathetic atmosphere freighted with trust 
he would work relief. 

In all three of the synoptic gospels where this incident 
is recorded we have the affirmation of Jesus, " The damsel 
is not dead but sleepeth." This would indicate that this 
was not a case of raising the dead, but of the reanimation of 
one in a state of coma. If we insist upon the full strength 
of the words of Christ when they directly affirm his super- 
human power, we are to be no less faithful to such a state- 
ment as the one recorded in all three of the narratives. 
" She is not dead but sleepeth." It is a question here of 
careful, honest exegesis rather than any dogmatic question 
as to the possibility of miracles. We shall not exalt the 
person of Christ by claiming more than may be rightly 
claimed by painstaking fidelity to the record. The One 
who said "Ye shall know the truth; and the truth shall 
make you free," can only be served by fearless and thor- 
ough-going loyalty to the truth. 

He took the damsel by the hand and said to her, 



HIS METHOD 153 

" Talitha, Cumi — Damsel, Arise." The girl arose and 
walked, and he directed that something be given her to 
eat. The people were astonished with a great astonishment. 
The Master of life and of death, the One competent to 
heal diseases and to forgive iniquities, had asserted again 
his sovereign good will in that home of pain and distress. 

In both of these narratives the truth is brought out 
that even the honest mistakes men make in diagnosing 
that which they fear or in selecting methods of relief when 
they undertake to bring their need into contact with divine 
help do not fail of their reward. The best we know of our 
own lack falls far short of the reality; and the wisest 
methods we select when we would gain some valued result 
may seem childish before him with whom we have to do. 
But where the touch and appeal are those of genuine 
trust, the sincerity of the attitude rather than the wisdom 
manifest in the choice of means is regarded. 

The hour of need in our human experience becomes a 
revealing time. We should never have dreamed of the la- 
tent courage and patriotism, of the unuttered eloquence 
and generosity among the quiet farms and in the shops 
and stores of the North but for the emergency of the Civil 
War. The son might never have known the intensity of 
his mother's love and devotion but for the long illness 
through which she nursed him back to life. The great 
need clears the field and offers a wide open space that some 
great deed may come forth and fill it. 

The immediate efficacy of Christ's work in these pas- 
sages is one of its glories. He said to the patient suf- 
ferer, " Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole," and the 
woman walked away with the elastic grace of healthy 
womanhood. He said to the girl unconscious in a sleep 
from which she might not have awaked without his help, 
" Maiden, arise," and straightway the damsel arose. 



154 THE MASTER'S WAY 

You need not postpone the time when you will receive 
great blessings from the Lord, no, not for an hour. The 
rewards of Christian service are indeed cumulative — they 
unfold and enlarge from year to year. But there need be 
no delay in initiating this process of divine help. " Today 
if ye will." The Son of Man is on earth and he can for- 
give sins at once. He is not far from any one of us and 
when " the Spirit comes upon a man," with his assent and 
acceptance, he is, according to the promise, " turned into 
another man." 

We live and move in him. His power, his wisdom and 
his love press us on every side. But his helpfulness now 
as of old responds only to the touch and appeal of loving 
trust. His help does not force its way unasked nor fling 
itself upon the multitude without discrimination. When 
the personal appeal is made aright then he restores us from 
our ills, then he causes the life become inert and unrespon- 
sive to rise into life abounding and unending:. 



XXVI 
THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND 

Mark 6 : 30-44 

This passage if read in midsummer becomes indeed 
" the lesson for the day." In its opening word it puts the 
seal of approval upon what so many people are doing at that 
season. Jesus said to his disciples, " Come ye apart and 
rest awhile." And they at once departed with him into 
the wilds. 

When some self-appointed mentor censures the tired 
pastor or the weary Sunday school teacher with the solemn 
observation, " The devil never takes a vacation," it is 
enough to say in reply, " We are not followers of the devil 
— we are followers of Him who said, ' Come ye apart and 
rest awhile.' " The spirit has its tides no less than the 
ocean. Where the movement of energy is always outward 
there comes depletion. There needs to be a time when 
the life waits for the influx of new power as the bay waits 
for its infilling by the ocean at the turn of the tide. 

The timeliness of the lesson is further increased by the 
fact that it is the story of an outdoor meal. The people 
were sitting on the green grass. They were far removed 
from the ordinary sources of food supply. They were 
hungry, so that the compassionate heart of Christ was un- 
willing to " send them away " lest some should faint by the 
way. And now the same heart of sympathy, which in its 
concern for the weary disciples had suggested a vacation, 
showed itself no less alive to the common hunger of an 
insistent multitude of plain folk. 

155 



156 THE MASTER'S WAY 

When Jesus saw the hungry people " he was moved 
with compassion." When the disciples saw them, they said 
" Send them away." They would have the hungry go 
elsewhere to buy themselves food. But Jesus said, " They 
need not go away — give ye them to eat." The disciples 
replied, " Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth 
of bread?" The absurdity of it was manifest — they 
had not that much money in their possession, and there 
was no such supply of provision on sale anywhere within 
reach. 

Then Jesus said, " How many loaves have you? ' 
They did not know. They went out to investigate. 
Presently they came back and reported " Five — but what 
are they? " Still they did not know. They were doing 
their little sums in arithmetic, leaving out of the account 
the most significant fact in the situation. They were 
adding up their little columns of figures, like children at 
grammar school, as if there had been no " prophet mighty 
in word and in deed " close at hand. 

The disproportion between their own meager resources 
and the amount of need in that hungry multitude stag- 
gered them. It staggered them because they did not dream 
of the latent possibilities in that situation. They did not 
know how wonderful the most meager resources may be- 
come when they are once brought under the power of an 
unhesitating consecration to Christ. 

Then in the confidence of power Jesus bade the people 
sit down as for a meal. " And they sat down in ranks " — 
the Greek word is more picturesque, " in garden beds and 
garden beds" (for the word is repeated), "by hundreds 
and by fifties," for convenience in serving. And when 
Jesus had taken the meager resources of the company into 
his own hands and blessed them, he gave to his disciples 
and they distributed to the people who were set down as 



HIS METHOD 157 

much as they would. And to the amazement of every- 
body, the slender resources sufficed to meet the need of the 
entire company. 

This is the story. It is soon told, but that which is 
here symbolized in the divine utilization of inadequate 
resource to meet appalling need is a process the story of 
which can never be exhausted. 

Strike out the word " loaves," which are simply the 
x, y and z of the problem, the outward symbols of values 
innumerable! How many loaves of knowledge have you 
as you face the world of spiritual reality and undertake to 
instruct your fellows? How much faith have you as you 
face some bewildering situation or seek to point the way for 
some other baffled soul? How much strength have you as 
you undertake to give those struggling lives a friendly 
lift? How much money have you as you look out upon the 
unrelieved want of the world? How much goodness have 
you as you enlist with Him who is seeking to take away 
the sin of the world? 

How much have you of all this? Go and see. And 
you may come back presently to say, in your humiliation: 
"How much? Not much — just this. And what is this 
among so many? " 

You may be disturbed by vague longings of your own. 
You want a more complete physical effectiveness, not for 
self-indulgence, but for unselfish service. You want a more 
complete mental unfolding, for you feel stirring within 
you an unrealized capacity for high and serious thought. 
You long for a more satisfying fellowship with those who 
would know you as you are, for that perfect sympathy and 
congeniality of spirit which belong to companionship on 
its high levels. You long for a soul purer, truer, kinder 
than this troubled soul of yours which comes up weary 
and discouraged from the fret and care of a hard week. 



158 THE MASTER'S WAY 

You long for all this, but when you look at your own 
meager resource you are dismayed. You will be helped 
beyond a peradventure by a closer study of the feeding of 
the multitude. 

The Master knew what those five loaves were among 
so many, and he was the only one who did know. The 
boy who brought the little stock of provision — five bis- 
cuits and two sardines, we would put it in our modern 
Western phrase — was amazed at the result. The disciples 
were amazed, for they were just learning to spell words of 
one syllable in that august message of divine help which 
had come into the world. But the Master " knew what he 
would do," for he alone knew w r hat he could do. 

How amazed many a man is when he sees his own 
modest store of ability used for the accomplishment of the 
divine purpose! He knows how meager it is, yet reports 
come back of genuine service rendered which astonish him. 
He has been speaking a kind word here, doing a generous 
deed there, maintaining a certain character for rectitude, 
holding an attitude of sympathy truly Christian, and no 
end of good has been accomplished by the use of these 
simple agencies. 

"What am I?" the man said at the beginning of his 
Christian life. He did not know — no man ever knows. 
The Master knows because he sees the unrealized capacity 
in every soul. The perpetual enlargement and enrichment 
of personality, with powers of service correspondingly in- 
creased, which goes on when men live in fellowship with 
Christ, is to me more wonderful than this story about the 
loaves and the fishes. 

Every great thing, it matters not whether it is an 
individual or an institution or a movement in which all the 
nations of the earth may ultimately be blessed, has its 
hour of unsuspected capacity. It may lie in the manger of 



HIS METHOD 159 

a stable in some little Bethlehem, its future glory all un- 
declared. It may see a period when it is in danger of being 
slain by some cruel Herod whom later it could wither with 
a word. In such an hour the prosaic nature lacking in 
vision may look in and say, " What is this tiny beginning 
in the face of obstacles so great? " He knows not the 
unrealized possibilities of that life which may yet wear a 
name which is above every name. " What is this? " you 
ask, touching some modest beginning. Ask Him! He alone 
is competent to make reply. 

The whole story of the loaves and fishes is most reas- 
suring when we are depressed because of the disproportion 
between the visible efforts we can put forth and the magni- 
tude of our task. Here is the everlasting struggle between 
the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Here is 
one solitary missionary set down in China, India, Africa, 
facing the ignorance, the prejudice, the sinfulness of a 
hundred thousand people who walk in darkness. The 
present proportion is just about that, one to one hundred 
thousand — what is he among so many? 

Here is one little home missionary church set down in 
a mining town or a lumber camp in the mountains of 
Montana or Idaho. There are ten grog shops and half a 
dozen other places still worse fighting steadily on the other 
side. What is the little church against such odds! 

Here is the unorganized moral sentiment of a com- 
munity undertaking to fight some strongly intrenched evil! 
The evil has political pull and money galore and scores of 
ugly-hearted henchmen who profit by it — what can moral 
sentiment do against all that? How unequal the contest 
seems on the face of it! 

And yet, inadequate as the forces of light may seem, 
the hard fact stands that on all the mission fields of earth 
and all along the frontier in our own land and in those 



160 THE MASTER'S WAY 

sections of our cities where the representatives of righteous- 
ness stand in the very thick of the fight, men and women 
like ourselves are coming off more than conquerors through 
Him who uses weak things to confound the mighty. 

11 It is a great miracle," as Charles E. Jefferson says, 
11 and it presents a great mystery. The mystery is so 
great that some men have attempted to explain away the 
miracle. But their explanations are more marvelous than 
the miracle itself. If this story of the feeding of the multi- 
tude be history, it is indeed strange, but if it be fiction it 
is stranger still. That a Jewish publican or fisherman 
should spin in his own inner consciousness a story so 
graphic and straightforward and then spin an alleged dis- 
course so profound that nineteen centuries of thinking have 
not yet carried us to the bottom of it, and so nicely at- 
tuned to the miracle that word and deed seem but comple- 
menting parts of one strain of music, and then create a 
character on whose lips the discourse does not sound blas- 
phemous and to whose hands the miracle does not seem 
disproportioned, is of course possible but hardly probable. 
It is more reasonable to ascribe great deeds to Jesus of 
Nazareth than such great stories to the men who followed 
him." 



XXVII 

THE STORM-TOSSED MEN 

Mark 6 : 45-56 

The Master had fed the multitude and had sent them 
away not hungry and fainting but filled. Now he must be 
fed for he felt that power had gone out from him. There- 
fore " when he had sent them away, he departed into a 
mountain to pray." He was alone with the Father that 
his own depleted strength might be replenished. 

" The wind was contrary " that night, and the disciples 
in the little boat made no headway. They toiled in rowing 
all night until three o'clock in the morning, — " it was the 
fourth watch in the night," — unable to bring their boat 
to the opposite shore. The wind was contrary so they 
could not sail — there was nothing for it but to pull at the 
oars, and their efforts seemed futile. 

" The wind was contrary" — the fundamental fact was 
against them. There is no tide on the little lake, and it 
was before the days of steam. The wind, therefore, was 
the main force to be reckoned with and it was adverse. 
It could not be changed nor reasoned with — they could 
only resist its blind, meaningless opposition with their 
puny strength. 

What a picture of the situation in which lives in- 
numerable find themselves! There is some opposing force 
which cannot be changed nor ordered off; it cannot be 
climbed over nor crawled under; it will not explain its 
meaning nor grant a respite for the accomplishment of some 
worthy purpose. The opposition is there confronting and 

161 



162 THE MASTER'S WAY 

baffling the life. For many a soul the night is dark, the 
sea is rough, and the wind is contrary. 

It would be impossible to name all of the contrary 
winds which men encounter. The stiff breeze of opposition 
to peace and progress may blow through the rooms of a 
man's own home. The union which exists there was made 
with the best intentions, but it was ill-advised, and the 
wind is contrary for them both. The opposing wind may 
blow from the stubborn fact of chronic ill health. When 
the heartbeat is neither strong nor true, when the nerves 
shriek and bluster in an unnatural excitement, when whole- 
some food becomes disquieting instead of renewing, because 
of a disordered digestion, it seems well-nigh impossible for 
mind and heart to move serenely toward the haven where 
they would be. 

The life may encounter a fundamental opposition in 
the dreariness and monotony of its toil. The loss of joy 
and pride in one's work which seems inevitable where a 
man is doomed to spend his days punching holes in a shoe, 
or feeding endless material into some huge machine, or 
weighing numberless cargoes which to him are mere weight 
and bulk, becomes a serious handicap to the man's advance. 
In every such case it seems as if the great main fact had 
arrayed itself in opposition. The men toil in rowing and toil 
to no purpose. 

But there was a silent and sympathetic witness of the 
struggle the men made. " He saw them toiling in rowing." 
He was watching from the heights where he had gone to 
pray, to see how they fared. He is ever watching. He that 
keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep while his 
friends are storm-tossed. 

How much it means that there is some one who knows 
and cares! How much it means to a growing boy fighting 
his temptations and battling with his reluctance to face 



HIS METHOD 163 

some hard duty if he overhears his father say, " The boy 
is putting up a good fight — I am proud of him." How 
much it means that the divine Christ sees us toiling in 
rowing and at the very hour when we tremble on the verge 
of defeat stands ready to come with his almighty aid. 
The fundamental fact in the situation is not against us, 
it is never against us, when we count him in with the 
factors which determine the issue. 

The contrary winds have their high office to fill. It 
is well for most of us that life is not easy. Life is easy for 
clams and for those rich men's sons who undertake no 
business of their own, who never seek to be useful in 
political life, who lend no hand to philanthropic effort. 
Life is easy indeed for them, and look at them! There is 
not much to choose between the clams in their mud-bath 
and the soft-shelled young men lounging in the clubs, 
driving their bobtailed horses and saying empty things to 
the girls. When all the contrary winds are taken away, 
the life becomes mere pulp. 

The sailor becomes a mariner not by paddling his 
dory about in a quiet mill pond — he does it by launching 
out into the deep and sailing the high seas in all the winds 
that blow. The boy knows that his kite will only rise 
when the wind blows hard against it. It must have the 
wind seeking to pull it away and the stout string holding 
it to its course — then this correlation of forces will carry 
it up. The very difficulties men encounter, the head 
winds they face, together with the strong kite-string of 
will, purpose and high resolve in their correlation, carry 
the personal life surely and steadily upward. 

But the value of this opposition in its worthy outcome 
is heightened by the fact that from the heights the sympa- 
thetic eyes of the divine Christ watch over the struggles 
we flrake. When the situation grows desperate, he comes 



164 THE MASTER'S WAY 

to our relief as he did to the storm-tossed disciples on the 
Sea of Galilee. When they first saw him they thought it 
was a ghost, and they cried out with fear. Then he spoke 
to them and quieted their hearts. 

The passage brings to our minds the great company of 
men who spend their days and their nights upon the sea. 
The marine statistics of the world show us that there are 
three millions of these men. They are away from home. 
They live where there are no churches, no firesides, no 
pleasant, wholesome places of entertainment. When they 
come ashore at an occasional port they find vipers awaiting 
them more hostile and deadly than the one which fastened 
on Paul's hand when he was shipwrecked at Malta. 
They are met by " barbarous people " who show them no 
kindness. The rumseller, the gambler, the harlot, the thief 
and all the other land sharks are awaiting the sailor that 
they may rob him of his money and of his manhood. 

The life in the " fo'c'sle " is a rough, hard life. The 
food served up to Jack, the place given him to sleep and 
the whole setting of his life " before the mast " are calcu- 
lated to sink the higher instincts and impulses. His very 
soul is beaten and bruised and storm-tossed by the mode of 
life which he is forced to accept. His lips may utter rude, 
blasphemous words, but his deeper need cries out as Peter 
cried that night to the Saviour, " Lord, help me! " When 
we remember how God is knitting the nations of the earth 
up into a new sympathy and a better understanding by 
travel, by trade, by the whole interchange of thought and 
substance; and when we remember how necessary the 
sailor is to this mighty process in the larger civilization, 
we feel something of the debt of gratitude we owe to the 
man upon the sea. 

The storm-tossed men on the sea were not forgotten 
in that darkest night — Christ came to them on the water 



HIS METHOD 165 

asserting his sovereign authority and his invincible good 
will by land and by sea. They must not be forgotten by 
the followers of Christ. When the offering is taken for the 
Seamen's Friend Society or for the Floating Work of the 
Endeavor Society or for some Marine Hospital for disabled 
sailors or for a Home for their orphans, we can still hear 
across the waves that appeal which came to the ears of 
Christ, " Lord, save me! " 

When he was received into their boat " the wind 
ceased and they were sore amazed." And then their arms 
made strong by his presence and their hearts relieved from 
fear by his assuring words, they reached their desired haven 
with a deeper sense of the divine goodness. The contrary 
winds had brought them a new manifestation of the divine 
watchfulness and care. 

" One ship turns east and another west 
With the selfsame winds that blow; 
Tis the set of the sails and not the gales 
Which tells us the way to go. 

" Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate 
As we voyage along through life; 
'Tis the set of the soul which decides the goal 
And not the calm or the strife." 

Alexander McKenzie of Cambridge was for many years 
the honored and useful president of the Boston Seaman's 
Friend Society. In one of his sermons he gave this bit of 
personal history: " My father was a sailor. I was a boy 
when he came back from a three years' voyage. The ship 
had been signaled from far away and a friendly officer of 
the customs let me go down in his boat to meet her. As 
we drew near the ship I stood in the bow and at length 
could see my father leaning over the side of the ship 
watching our boat. When we came near enough I waved 
my cap. He saw me and called out to one of the men, 
1 Throw a rope to my boy.' The sailor threw the rope 



166 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and in a few moments the boy was in his father's arms. 
It was a simple thing, but many a time since have I 
heard that voice, that command which has become en- 
treaty, and it has become the voice of the Father in heaven 
watching some child of his who needed to be brought 
near to him. I have heard the word and loved it and tried 
to make it God's word to me and the inspiration of my 
life. ' Throw a rope to my boy.' " 

When the Master had brought that boatload of anxious 
men safe to land, the report of it went everywhere. And 
the people of that whole region began to carry the sick 
and the needy of every sort to him that they might at 
least touch the border of his garment. And as many as 
were brought into touch with the Christ were helped. 



XXVIII 
THE GREAT QUESTION 

Mark 8 : 27-38 

The religious emphasis today is not on creed statement 
or theological definition. The mood of our time concerns 
itself more with the manifestation of the religious spirit 
in humane service. This is undoubtedly an accent of the 
Holy Ghost but there are other accents. There are diversi- 
ties of operation by the same Spirit. In the earlier years of 
Christian history it was inevitable that a large amount of 
mental acumen and moral passion should be given to the 
task of sharply marking off from the confusing forms of 
paganism surrounding it the actual content of the Christian 
faith. 

"Whom do men say that I am?" Jesus asked his 
disciples. What does the world think of me? What is the 
current evaluation placed upon my life? The question is 
necessary and vital. It is a query propounded not by some 
idle, speculative schoolmen, but by the One who taught 
men to do unto others as they would have others do unto 
them, and himself went about doing good. In him there 
was no divorce of theological and ethical interest. He was 
unwilling to proceed further with the work committed 
into his hands until his immediate followers should return 
an answer to that inquiry, " Whom say ye that I am? " 
which his own self-knowledge could approve. 

There were many who felt that he was a good man, 
perhaps the best man that ever lived. They felt a pro- 
found admiration for his words and his deeds. They said 

167 



168 THE MASTER'S WAV 

' He is the equal of John the Baptist or Jeremiah or Elijah, 
or, in fact, any one of the prophets." These current im- 
pressions reported by his disciples, inaccurate though they 
were, present striking evidence as to the sense of surpassing 
greatness which attached to him in the minds of his con- 
temporaries. The people of that day who heard his words 
and saw his life were ready to believe that one of the most 
renowned leaders of Israel had risen from the dead, ap- 
pearing among them in a glorified form. 

The popular estimate thus expressed testifies to the 
many-sided character of his greatness. Men according to 
their varying experiences of his power could find in him the 
exquisite, brooding tenderness of a Jeremiah or the blood 
and fire of Elijah the Tishbite. This had a certain limited 
value, even as the qualified esteem for the Master expressed 
in some socialist hall or in a slushy magazine article by men 
who withhold their open allegiance from him has some 
worth, but its real significance is slight. Jesus was not 
content to be classified as one among many good men 
or even as the chief. 

The disciples reported that men were placing a varying 
estimate upon him. " But ye — whom say ye that I am? ' 
He pressed them for an open, definite declaration of their 
own convictions as to the rank and quality of the life he 
manifested. And when Peter, the spokesman for the group, 
always more ready with his words than the rest, returned 
an answer Jesus could approve, there fell from his lips 
that shower of benedictions recorded more fully in Mat- 
thew's account of this event — " Blessed art thou, Simon. . . 
on this I will build." 

It may be questioned whether the words of Peter 
assert the divinity of Christ as we understand that doctrine 
today — whether they indeed affirm anything more than a 
strong conviction as to his Messiahship without entering 



HIS METHOD 169 

into the more intricate problem as to his person. If this 
statement stood unsupported by other and stronger state- 
ments made by the contemporaries of Jesus in their effort 
to account for him, the full doctrine of his deity might 
never have come to hold the place it has in Christian 
thought. 

But when we study the resolute determination of his 
followers, themselves members of that Hebrew race, steeped 
for centuries in the majestic truth of the unity of God, to 
relate his person to Infinite Being in a manner altogether 
unique — an attempt never undertaken on behalf of Paul 
or John or any other great religious leader of that century; 
and when we find this determination clearly and repeatedly 
expressed in the Synoptic Gospels, the Fourth Gospel, the 
Acts and the Epistles, we can readily understand why all 
the great main branches of the Christian Church, following 
the lead of those first apostles, have made belief in the 
divinity of Christ an essential part of their creeds. 

In addition to the portrait of Christ as it stands upon 
the pages of the New Testament embodying the estimate of 
eye-witnesses of his majesty, there is the history of the 
Christian Church for nineteen hundred years. The lower 
conception of Christ as an extraordinary man or as the first 
of created beings has had its full chance to be heard. 
Gnostic and Arian, Socinian and Unitarian have offered 
this lower view to those who were puzzled or repelled by 
the higher claim. The offer has been made by men alto- 
gether winsome in personal character and possessed of un- 
usual power in literary statement. 

And what has been the result, taking it by and large? 
We are not moving here in any realm of metaphysical 
speculation. We are not examining historical sources so 
remote as those contained in the pages of the New Testa- 
ment. We are scrutinizing facts of history which no one 



170 THE MASTER'S WAY 

thinks of calling in question. The adherents of the lower 
view are but a small company. They have failed to com- 
mand any considerable following or to develop the spiritual 
vigor possessed by those great branches of the church which 
hold the higher view. They have failed to show that evi- 
dence of an all-inclusive, self-sacrificing moral interest seen 
in those missionary movements which clasp the whole 
round world in the arms of spiritual affection. The vaster 
moral enterprises have been left to those bodies of Chris- 
tians which hold that Christ is divine. 

Theological claims are to be tested by the scrutiny of 
life as well as by the scrutiny of logic. Men do not gather 
grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles even though the thorns 
and the thistles be planted in ten feet of black loam, well 
watered and with a southern exposure. The inner some- 
thing demanded for producing grapes and figs is lacking. 
And men do not gather the highest and most enduring 
spiritual results from erroneous claims even though for a 
period outward conditions may favor. In the course of 
time the truth has a way of vindicating itself at the bar of 
experience. 

The lower view of Christ's person has not stood the 
test of use. The men who hold it have shown themselves 
strong in protest — and the juster elements of that protest 
have been heard and accepted in the more reasonable 
orthodoxy held by the evangelical churches of our day — 
but they have not been successful in creative moral action. 
The moral passion and spiritual energy which show them- 
selves efficient on the field of foreign missionary effort, in 
the spread of the Kingdom in unpromising quarters at 
home and in the production of the necessary volume of 
unselfish consecration for vigorous church life, have been 
the peculiar product and property of that larger section 
of the Christian Church which has sturdily held to the 



HIS METHOD 171 

higher view of the person of Christ. On this he has built 
and the forces of evil have not been able to prevail against 
it. 

But in the very hour of Peter's great confession the 
cross was already casting its mysterious shadow upon the 
splendor of that matchless life. " The Son of Man must 
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and be 
killed." The pathway of spiritual advance would be a 
pathway of painful humiliation and of unmeasured self- 
sacrifice — for him and for his followers. There is no other 
way. Saving the life by holding it apart in selfish security 
in the face of the world's need is losing it! The real life 
is found only as it loses itself by the loving investment of 
its powers in service. 

It was a hard saying for Peter and for the rest. Their 
heads were full of dreams of an external glory in that com- 
ing Kingdom which they believed the Messiah would speedily 
establish. 

Alas, poor Peter! He had just been sent to the head 
of the class because he had so readily and justly voiced 
the feeling of the disciples regarding the person of Christ, 
speaking from a deeper level of conviction and spiritual 
experience than that represented in the current estimates. 
And now because in his dull conceit he could not sympa- 
thize with the method of Jesus, he is remanded to the foot. 
He knew how to abound, joyously following his Master's 
steps in that mighty exaltation to which he had given his 
personal testimony. He did not know how to be abased in 
following One who made himself of no reputation, took 
upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient 
unto the death of the cross. The metal of Peter's loyalty 
was untempered, needing yet the fiery discipline to which 
his genuine loyalty would surely introduce him. 

But the manifestation of the glory of unselfish service 



172 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and of sacrificial devotion would not be postponed to some 
other state of being. It would stand revealed, as the eyes 
of men were gradually opened to the deeper meanings of 
human existence. There were men standing by who would 
not taste of death until they had seen the enduring worth 
and the transcendent beauty of that life which loses itself 
that it may find itself, revealed with power and great glory. 



XXIX 

A TROUBLED SEA AND A TROUBLED SOUL 

Mark 4 :35 — 5 : 20 

11 He maketh the storm a calm so that the waves 
thereof are still." " With authority he commandeth the 
unclean spirits and they obey him." In the realm of 
inanimate nature and in that sphere where the Spirit acts 
upon spirit there is the same assertion of a Sovereign Good 
Will. 

We may recall in this connection the words of Princi- 
pal Fairbairn, one of the foremost scholars of our genera- 
tion: " Once conceive Christ to be the extraordinary person 
we believe him to be and miracles become to him both 
natural and necessary. They complete the picture of the 
divine goodness he manifests, showing that its action in 
the physical is in essential harmony with its action in 
the moral sphere." 

This whole passage is a hard saying and many there 
be who cannot receive it. There are difficulties which are 
not removed either by the attempts of such scholars as 
Weiss and Beyschlag to rationalize the references to the 
miraculous or by the labored efforts of those who would 
take every item in the narrative literally. Jesus of Naza- 
reth " was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God 
and all the people," as was said on the road to Emmaus, 
and when we stand in his presence we stand perpetually 
in the presence of mystery. 

It ought to be remembered that a generation ago there 
was a resolute insistence on the part of certain critical 

173 



174 THE MASTER'S WAY 

scholars that every reference to the miraculous in the Gos- 
pels be read out of court. The progress of medical science 
in making plain the relation of certain physical disorders 
to prevalent states of mind and heart and the immediate 
utility of spiritual forces in the recovery of health has 
wrought a great change at this point. We now find in that 
same quarter an almost cordial readiness to admit the 
" miracles of healing " to respectful consideration as com- 
ing easily within the range of what may be deemed proba- 
ble. It may be that an increased knowledge of the mysteri- 
ous interaction of mental and physical forces will still 
further clear the air so that the " nature miracles " which 
seem to some minds beyond the hope of mercy and outside 
the pale of serious consideration may also demand a more 
truly " scientific treatment." 

In the presence of the many unsolved mysteries which 
confront us in the vast system of life and in the presence 
also of the unique person of Christ which of itself raises an 
anticipation that the great natural order which enfolded 
him might have made to him an unwonted response, it is 
the part of intellectual modesty to await such further light 
as may come before making a dogmatic pronouncement 
against these narratives whose spiritual content is so bound 
up with the most effective redemptive forces in the spiritual 
history of the race. 

I am free to confess that I find it easier to fit the 
narratives of miraculous healing into my own conception 
of the general scheme of things than to welcome there the 
narratives as to the feeding of the multitude, the walking 
on the water or the stilling of the storm. But given the 
personality of Jesus Christ as I find it outlined before me 
on the pages of the New Testament and as I find it pic- 
tured in yet bolder lines in the record of moral renewal in 
all lands through the power of his Name and his Grace for 



HIS METHOD 175 

the last nineteen centuries, I can readily believe that he 
achieved results both in the realm of inanimate nature and 
in the realm of sentient spirit which transcend the ordinary 
categories of cause and effect as at present understood. 

In the first of the two narratives contained in this 
lesson we find the Master wearied by his teaching and by 
the other labors of the day. His sheer fatigue made it 
possible for him to sleep untroubled through a storm which 
caused the waves to beat into the boat. The disciples were 
amazed at his careless indifference to his own safety and 
theirs. " Master, carest thou not that we perish? ' ! When 
they had awakened him, he said, "Where is your faith?' 
He was less disturbed by the tossing waves about him 
than by the fickle, troubled hearts of those who in spite of 
all they had witnessed of his mighty, beneficent power, were 
still fearful even though they voyaged with him. 

But he arose and rebuked the winds. He said, " Peace, 
be still! " And the wind ceased and there was a great 
calm. Why not? In the last analysis, according to the 
philosophy which today exercises the most potent influence 
over the thinking of all serious men who come to close 
grips with fundamental problems, the ultimate power in 
what we call " the natural world " is mind or spirit. And 
Jesus of Nazareth stands to this hour as the supreme 
manifestation in history of that Power and as its most 
highly accredited Agent. If the simple narrative here 
laid before us seems to stagger our belief, no less does 
his own character and the record of his redemptive effi- 
cacy as evidenced in historical events which cannot be 
gainsaid. 

When they reached the other side of the lake they met 
a raging madman in the country of the Gadarenes. The 
symptoms recorded in the narratives of these demoniacs seem 
to fall under three heads — they were the symptoms we would 



176 THE MASTER'S WAY 

today attribute to insanity, to epilepsy or to the paralysis 
of some particular function. The indications here point to 
insanity. The man was utterly abnormal in his mode of 
life — " he had his dwelling among the tombs." He showed 
an unnatural, ungovernable strength in his frenzy — "no 
man could bind him, no, not with chains." In another 
gospel it is stated that " he was exceeding fierce so that no 
man might pass that way." Luke adds that " he wore no 
clothes." His whole mode of life showed him irrational 
— " always, night and day, he was in the mountains crying 
and cutting himself with stones." 

1 When he saw Jesus afar off," something in the Mas- 
ter's look and bearing drew the sufferer to his feet. " He 
ran and worshiped him." When asked his name, the wild 
reply was, " Legion." His mental and nervous disorder 
was such that he felt as if he were in the grip of a thousand 
devils. Jesus healed him so that presently his associates 
to their consternation found him "sitting clothed and in 
his right mind." However unscientific their former diag- 
nosis may have been in seeki-ng to account for those mys- 
terious nervous and mental maladies which baffle the 
knowledge and skill of our leading medical men to this 
hour, they recognized the fact that restoration meant being 
once more in his " right mind." 

Now there was a herd of swine feeding on the steep 
cliff which rises abruptly from that side of the Lake in the 
country of the Gadarenes. And at that juncture " the 
herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea and 
were choked in the sea." It seems altogether probable 
that some extraordinary frenzy on the part of the insane 
man just before he was restored to his right mind frightened 
the swine and led to their stampede over the edge of the 
cliff and to their destruction in the sea. 

The witnesses of these strange events introduced a 



HIS METHOD 177 

causal connection between the two events which does not 
commend itself to the sober judgment of most scholars in 
our day. The insane man was healed and the herd of 
swine ran over the edge of the cliff and was drowned. But 
the attributing of the man's mental disorder to demoniacal 
possession and the attributing of his cure to the passing 
of the devils from the body of the man into the bodies of 
the swine with the implications regarding the strange 
Eastern doctrine of the transmigration of souls from human 
bodies into animal forms (a notion to which our Scriptures 
nowhere else give the least indorsement), would seem to be 
the inaccurate interpretation of the two events due to the 
imperfect knowledge of that period. 

The fact that a certain recognition of Jesus as the 
Son of God is attributed to these demoniacs here and else- 
where would seem to have little significance. If we accept 
the words at their full face value we would not think of 
going for a certification of the deity of our Lord to the 
words of demoniacs. 

But here was the man who an hour before had showed 
all the symptoms which belong to insanity in its most 
violent form sitting clothed and in his right mind! Here 
he was so moved with awe and gratitude for his recovery 
that he besought Jesus that he might go with him as a 
personal attendant and disciple! What better evidence 
could we have of " a right mind " and of a grateful and 
obedient heart! The storm had ceased in his troubled 
nature also and there was a great calm. What manner of 
man is this? The wind and the sea obey him. He com- 
mandeth the maladies of men and they become submissive 
to his power. 

But Jesus suffered him not! " Go home to thy friends 
and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for 
thee." It was humane counsel — the nervous sufferer 



178 THE MASTER'S WAV 

would more easily become established in a normal life by 
the quiet of his own home than under the perennial stimu- 
lus and excitement which attended the public ministry of 
Jesus. It was also a politic word, for the Master shrank 
from being known mainly as a wonder-worker. It was also 
the command of a wise spiritual director — there in the 
country of the Gadarenes so little influenced by the ministry 
of Jesus and his disciples, the grateful man would find his 
best chance for rendering that useful service which would 
make for his own growth in grace. 

Here in this passage we find the Master teaching by 
word of mouth and by mighty deed! He saves to the utter- 
most and to the outermost. He finds a joyous warrant 
for the stormy voyage across the troubled lake in the op- 
portunity which offered to bring peace and joy to a 
troubled heart. He maketh the storm a calm. He re- 
placeth the spirit of fear with power and love and a sound 
mind. 



XXX 

THE CHRIST AND THE CHILD 

Mark 9 : 30-41; 10 : 13-16 

Human nature is human nature everywhere. The 
proud, fond mother may speak English and live in the 
twentieth century or she may speak Hebrew and live in the 
first; in certain essentials she is the same original fact in 
both cases. She is happy in the possession of her children 
and she is ready to believe that this supreme interest of 
her life will be shared by those she meets. 

The Master was at the height of his popularity. 
Everybody was talking about him, discussing what he had 
done last, wondering what he would do next. He was 
healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, causing 
the lame to walk, preaching good tidings to the poor. 
His very touch was supposed to have a miraculous effect. 
These mothers with their little ones in their arms coveted 
every possible benefit for them, as all good mothers do. 
They pressed their way through the crowd to ask the 
Master to touch their children and bless them. 

The disciples rebuked them for their presumption. 
They were undertaking to intrude upon the attention of the 
Master such trivial interests as little children. These 
grown men in their mature wisdom understood perfectly 
that Jesus could not concern himself with little children, 
no matter how much their mothers loved them. He was 
the Lord and Master of grown-up people like themselves. 
He came to address adults and to busy himself with the 
serious concerns of the mature. 

179 



180 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The disciples, therefore, rebuked the mothers who 
seemed overfond of their own babies, and tried to send 
them away. But when Jesus saw it he was much dis- 
pleased. " Suffer the little children to come unto me," he 
said; "forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of 
heaven." 

Keep the way open for the children! Keep the way 
open into the fullest measure of opportunity here sym- 
bolized by the outstretched arms of Christ! Keep the way 
open for every child to come freely into the highest privi- 
leges, physical, mental, moral, which a civilization called 
Christian can provide! Let no adult prejudice, no stupid 
ignorance unwilling to study the psychology of the child, 
no selfishness exalting its own ease and pleasure above the 
demands of the immature life, no greed ready to grind 
up the puny strength of the undeveloped into hasty profits, 
stand in the way of the normal unfolding of every child 
into its best! 

It is a far-reaching word with tremendous content. 
" Suffer the little children to come! " We may be sure 
that all ignorantly or wickedly devised plans to retard the 
advance of the child into all that the Master had in mind 
in his gracious invitation will have against them the full 
strength of the One who has taken the moral government 
of the world upon his shoulder. 

We are moving in this august matter — slowly and 
tardily, but moving. The vital interest of " Christian 
nurture " is being lifted by a more thorough and generous 
interest in the work of the Sunday school to that high 
place which Horace Bushnell, always a generation or two 
ahead of his own time, gave it in his wise appraisal. We 
are actually coming to believe that if wise church policy 
ordains that trained sopranos and altos, tenors and basses 
may fitly be employed on generous terms to sing the ma- 



HIS METHOD 181 

ture into the land of promise, it may be permissible to draw 
upon the church treasury to employ a man trained and 
expert in such matters to give his entire time to the 
organization and administration of a Sunday school 
where character is setting in the responsive lives of boys 
and girls. How lacking in skill and insight have been many 
of our awkward efforts in this high undertaking! And 
all the while the Master was saying to every church which 
bears his name, " Suffer the little children to come unto 
me. 

The full strength of public opinion is moving in the 
direction of better laws regarding child labor to safeguard 
the soft flesh of the child from the horny hand of greed. 
The unscrupulous employer may hold a big dollar so close 
to his ear as to shut out the feeble, plaintive cry of the 
child who is being worked too soon and too hard. But 
today in community after community that cry is being 
caught up and re-enforced by the manly voice of Christian 
sentiment issuing from tens of thousands of throats as a 
bugle call for the advance of a more humane practice. 
" Suffer the little children to come to their best " — this 
word is with power and it will make itself felt until the 
present disgrace of child labor shall be wiped from the fair 
face of our land. 

There are men who scoff at this agitation against child 
labor. I fear that their eyes are more upon the cash-book 
than upon the teachings of the New Testament. Some of 
them went to work when they were eleven or twelve years 
old and they have been earning their livings ever since. 
11 Look at us," they say, " we were thrown on our own 
resources early in life when there were no child labor laws 
butting into the business of practical men; and we have 
succeeded." 

But they were men of exceptional energy and capacity 



182 THE MASTER'S WAY 

from the start — their careers furnish no general principle 
for society generally. It would be in the highest degree 
absurd for me to go to some unfortunate weakling who by 
heredity, environment and lack of training has never had a 
fair chance for a sound body, a clear head and an honest 
heart, and say to him: " Here, you poor scrub! I can 
behave myself and take care of myself and have strength 
left for other loads — why cannot you? " 

No man who grows rich by exploiting the labor of 
boys and girls can ever quite close his eyes to the iniquity 
of the proceeding. He may be ever so obtuse morally, 
but there will come hours when the shame of it will burn 
like a hot iron. When he sits at an open fire in the luxury 
of his own home he will see there in the grate the burned- 
out energies of breaker boys working at the mouth of the 
mine. When his wife and daughters rustle into the room 
clothed in silk and lace the very luxury of their appearance 
will whisper to him of immature lives gone down in defeat 
under the pressure of their ill-timed toil. 

No matter though they were willing to be employed 
and had the consent of selfish or short-sighted parents 
(themselves thrust out of their natural employment, it 
may be, by the presence of the cheap child labor), the man 
who has profited by it will be conscious of the selfish 
cruelty of such a policy. " It were better," Jesus said, 
compassionate though he was, " that a man who causes 
a little child to stumble and fall should have a millstone 
tied about his neck and be cast into the sea." This would 
be a good text to have framed and hung at the " Em- 
ployes Entrance " of some of our factories which profit 
by the tragic undoing of the immature. 

In the light of this passage hear the words of prayer 
which Walter Rauschenbusch would put upon the lips of 
men: "O Thou great Father of the weak, lay thy hand 



HIS METHOD 183 

tenderly on all the little children on earth and bless them. 
Bless with a sevenfold blessing the young lives whose 
slender shoulders are already bowed beneath the yoke of 
toil. Suffer not their little bodies to be utterly sapped 
and their minds to be given over to stupidity and vice. 
Grant all employers of labor stout hearts to refuse enrich- 
ment at such a price. By the Holy Child that nestled in 
Mary's bosom; by the memories of our own childhood's 
joys and sorrows; by the sacred possibilities that slumber 
in every child, we beseech thee to save us from killing the 
sweetness of young life by the greed of gain." 

On another occasion Jesus asked his disciples what 
they had been discussing, for he saw the marks of angry 
contention graven upon their faces. " They held their 
peace" — they were ashamed to tell. They had been dis- 
puting as to which one of them should be the greatest in 
the Kingdom Jesus was to establish. Peter and James and 
John had been taken with Jesus into the chamber of death 
in the house of Jairus and into the mountain top of glory 
when Jesus was transfigured — they had been accorded a 
certain pre-eminence. James and John had filed their 
petitions for places on the right and left hand of the seat 
of power; and Peter had been called a "rock "of strength 
in the new Kingdom. But who would be first? 

The Master was ashamed of them — when they saw 
the look in his eyes they were ashamed of themselves. He 
said: " If any man would be first let him be last — let him 
become a servant. Among the Gentiles the ' great ' ones 
exercise lordship and dominion. It shall not be so among 
you. Here the greatest of all is the servant of all." 

Here was the death knell of that foolish theory that 
the greatest man is the man who can compel the largest 
number of people to serve him! Here is the dawn of a day 
when the only valid aristocracy will be one of high service. 



184 THE MASTER'S WAY 

If any man would rise let him stoop to serve! If any 
would be exalted let him take upon himself the form and the 
mood of the servant! 

Then Jesus again took a child and set him in the 
midst, as a fit embodiment of that spirit which enables 
men to enter and to advance in his Kingdom. " Of such 
is the Kingdom," he said. Modesty, humility, simplicity, 
gentleness, teachableness, responsiveness — these are the 
leading traits of normal childhood — and these indicate the 
path by which mature men may enter the Kingdom. 

11 He took them up in his arms and put his hands on 
them and blessed them" — a gracious, personal, exalting 
service rendered by the Highest to the simplest! Let this 
sight symbolize the gracious protecting, uplifting attitude 
which Christian society is to take toward these little lives 
completely at our mercy and committed to our care." 



XXXI 
THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE 

Matt. 9 : 35-38; 10 : 34-42 

" Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching, 
preaching, healing." Here we have the original trinity of 
redemptive agencies familiar today on all the mission 
fields of earth. Teaching, preaching, healing, the school, 
the church, the hospital, the schoolmaster, the minister and 
the physician, projecting the Christian energy into every 
place whither he himself would come! 

" When he saw the multitudes he was moved with 
compassion. They fainted — literally were ' mangled, rent, 
fleeced ' — and were scattered abroad as sheep having no 
shepherd. He said to his disciples, ' The harvest is 
plenteous — the laborers are few.'" He recognized his own 
inability to touch all those needy lives. He therefore 
undertook to multiply himself. He began that process 
in spiritual arithmetic which should continue unto the ac- 
complishment of his perfect will. He multiplied himself by 
twelve, then by seventy, then by three thousand. And the 
end is not yet — the process is still in operation. As the 
Father sent him, he will send and send and send until 
by this utilization of consecrated personality all shall come 
to know him from the least to the greatest. 

The disproportion between the possible harvest to be 
reaped and the number of effective reapers oppressed him. 
He urged his followers to pray that additional laborers 
might be sent forth. The same urgency exists today as 
witnessed by the showing made in such books as John R. 

185 



186 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Mott's " Future Leadership of the Church." It is impera- 
tive that parents and pastors alike should have upon their 
hearts the sense of responsibility for turning strong, capable, 
devoted young men into the work of the Christian ministry. 
There are splendid rewards and honors awaiting young 
men in law, in medicine or in the work of education, in 
commerce, in manufacturing or in engineering. And into 
these callings strong and useful men are going in such 
numbers that no cry of need is coming back. But in 
every branch of the Christian Church in every state of the 
Union there is a loud call for more young men of sound 
health, good sense, trained intelligence, social sympathy 
and genuine character to enter the ministry and furnish 
the needed spiritual leadership. " Pray the Lord of the 
harvest that he send forth laborers." 

When he called the twelve " he gave them power." 
It was not official, it was personal. He gave them power to 
heal and power to cast out the unclean spirit. He gave 
them through their intimate sense of fellowship with him 
the spiritual dynamic which made them efficient. 

He continued all night in prayer to God in preparation 
for this action. He saw in this selection of personal repre- 
sentatives the first decisive step in the expansion of his 
work to the point where he should have established a 
universal religion. He was making ready to say, " Go ye 
into all the world." He was naming men who should sit 
on twelve thrones of spiritual influence in Israel, bear 
witness to the uttermost parts of the earth and have their 
names inscribed at last on the foundation stones of the 
city of God. 

He was praying for those twelve men in this new and 
strange experience. They had been ears in their relation 
to him — now they were to be lips. His truth had been 
their lesson — now it was to be their message. He had 



HIS METHOD 187 

been saying to them, " Come," " Follow," " Learn of me." 
Now they must "go," " teach " and " disciple " other 
men. The word of Jesus opened a new door in each man's 
life transforming the disciple into an apostle. 

They were to begin with the duty that lay nearest. 
They were not to go into the way of the Gentiles nor into 
any city of the Samaritans, but "rather to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." The way to gain personal charac- 
ter and to evangelize the world is to do the thing which 
needs doing right at hand. Men are not called from Troas 
over into Macedonia to help a new continent into the 
light until they have rendered useful service in that part 
of Asia where they were born. 

This charge gave them the simpler task first. The 
conversion of Samaritans and of Gentiles raised intricate 
questions demanding experience and maturity for their 
solution. The Master wisely reckons with our slowly 
developing powers. 

The next charge had to do with their message. " As 
ye go preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
They were to accompany this proclamation with adequate 
credentials by healing the sick, and casting out the unclean 
spirits. They were both to proclaim and to utilize that 
system of spiritual forces which once put in operation makes 
for health, for sanity and for holiness. 

The word " kingdom " is a key word in the teaching of 
Christ and he made it central in the message of his apostles. 
He laid it on the lips of those he taught to pray — " when 
ye pray, say, Thy kingdom come." He bade men " seek 
first the kingdom." He stood before Pilate with the death 
sentence impending, speaking still of " My kingdom." 
The imperial quality of the term broadens the sympathies 
of every true Christian until they become world wide. 
The Christian Church is watching to see the Son of Man 



THE MASTER'S WAY 

coming in his kingdom; it is intent upon having the king- 
doms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord; 
and it will never conclude its prayer until it can say. 

Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory." 

The twelve men were to rely for their support upon 
the gratitude of the people to whom they ministered. 
They were to have the confidence of husbandmen in the 
good seed they carried. They would sow to men in spiritual 
things with the glad assurance that they would reap in 
material things a return adequate for their need. They 
were to trust to the good instincts of their hearers, con- 
fidently leaving to them the practical recognition of the 
fact that " the laborer is worthy of his meat." 

The twelve men were to live such lives that their 
presence in any home would be a benediction. They 
would convey the peace and grace of God by their very 
approach. " As ye enter into the house ... let your peace 
come upon it." The genuine Christian as he goes straight 
along about his Master's business, conscious of his high 
commission pronounces not in formal words but in vital 
influence his own benediction on every house able to re- 
ceive it. 

Where their ministry was declined and the offer of 
divine truth refused they were to make a dignified protest — 
"As ye go forth out of that house or city shake off the 
dust of your feet." It was not to be an expression of 
petty resentment or personal disappointment — it was to 
be " for a testimony." The touchiness of the eccle- 
siastic who fancies that any lack of deference to him is an 
affront to God and a grieving of the Holy Spirit is one 
thing, but the decorous protest uttered upon seeing some 
man or some community entering upon a wrong course is 
quite another. 

There is a testimony of protest and of warning no 



HIS METHOD 189 

less than of promise and encouragement. This paragraph 
from the high commission which began with the hopeful 
announcement, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," 
looks out solemnly at its close on the backs of those who 
had refused the message. "It shall be more tolerable for 
the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment 
than for that city." 

And then as a climax to this ordination address the 
Master laid down the doctrine that God is ever mediated 
to us in terms of personality. " He that receive th you, 
receiveth me and he that receiveth me receiveth him that 
sent me." This statement affirms in reverse order the vari- 
ous steps in that spiritual process indicated where Jesus 
said, " As the Father hath sent me, I send you." He would 
bridge the whole distance between the lowest form of 
human need and the highest help of heaven by flesh and 
blood yielding itself to divine grace. 

" The tabernacle of God is with men" — with those 
men who do not exclude but welcome him to the fullest 
participation in their lives. The spirit of God functions 
in the life of a devoted man as it does nowhere else in the 
visible creation. The lines and features of that Ineffable 
Face which no man has seen at any time nor can see, 
look out from the faces of Christians who stand unveiled 
in the presence of the divine glory until they are changed 
into the same image. And because this is true, to receive 
a true disciple of Christ into the life as a personal force 
is to receive the spirit of Christ, and to receive the spirit 
of Christ is to come into filial relations with the Eternal 
Father. 

Jesus would have the sacramental value and signifi- 
cance of these human relations recognized even to the 
slightest detail. If any one would give a cup of cold water 
in the name of a disciple (that is in the right spirit), he 



190 THE MASTER'S WAY 

would not fail of his reward. When one takes the tiniest 
sunbeam in the remotest corner of the universe and begins 
to follow it, he is headed straight for the center of the solar 
system. When one receives and begins to live by that spirit 
of unselfish devotion which may find expression in the 
simplest occurrences of daily life, he is in line to receive 
and to know the One who is the source of all love. 

11 Love one another for love is of God. Every one 
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." The heart 
of love shows the family resemblance. It does not need to 
appeal to any coat of arms or heraldry to establish its rela- 
tionship. 

The letter of this commission contains local details 
and counsels for the day, but the spirit of it moves above 
time or place. It is addressed to every soul called to aid 
in establishing the kingdom. Every Christian is " sent 
forth." If he has " learned " of Jesus as a " disciple " he 
must now " go and teach " as an " apostle." And in this 
high undertaking the One to whom all power has been 
given will be with him even unto the consummation of the 
age. 



XXXII 
THE PENITENT WOMAN 

Luke 7 : 36-50 

The Master uttered his clearest warnings against and 
pronounced his severest condemnation upon two cardinal 
and capital sins. They were not the coarse sins of the 
flesh which respectable people can so easily avoid and con- 
demn. The two sins which called forth the gravest words 
from our Lord were these, inhumanity and the uncharitable 
spirit. He seemed to feel that the greatest peril among 
those he addressed lay at these two points rather than 
in those coarser forms of wrongdoing into which men are 
suddenly betrayed by temper or passion. The cold-hearted, 
selfish sin of inhumanity and the proud Pharisaical attitude 
devoid of charity, these were the moral defects to which he 
gave his most serious attention. 

The lack of charity for the moral failure of others works 
terrible results. " Whose soever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained." What you bind on earth is ofttimes bound in 
the realm of moral permanence. The girl who has slipped 
from the path of purity is hardened by the world's scorn 
into brazen effrontery. The contempt of society makes her 
defiant until she flings back that scorn in her own contempt 
for the decencies of life. Society shuts the door in her 
face with a slam until she bows to its harsh verdict and 
goes upon the street. Honorable employment is denied her 
because of her slip and she accepts " Mrs. Warren's Profes- 
sion " as the last alternative. And in less than five years 
on an average, according to the terrible findings of the 

191 



192 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Commission on Vice in Chicago, her body, become a thing 
of loathing even before she died, is in the cemetery and 
her soul is — where? 

That harsh and hasty attitude toward the girl when she 
first steps aside from the path of purity is devilish. It 
would more offend the soul of him who spoke those plain 
words about the sin of inhumanity and the unforgiving 
spirit than would the coarser sins against which we can so 
fiercely inveigh. And thousands of such girls have been 
sent down sharply and swiftly into physical, social and 
moral hell who might have been recovered to lives of 
honor, usefulness and happiness by the wise and patient 
mercy which finds expression in such beneficent in- 
stitutions, for example, as the Talitha Cumi Home in 
Boston. 

How long will it take the world to learn that scorn 
never recovered a guilty soul from the grip of evil. Satan 
does not cast out Satan — he cannot. The Beelzebub of 
uncharity and inhumanity does not cast out devils — 
that spirit is the prince of devils and its house is not 
divided against itself. If any one is overtaken in a fault 
you who are spiritual — for you are the only ones who can 
— restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, steadily 
considering yourselves lest you also be tempted. Whose 
sins ye remit they are remitted! The power of absolution 
and moral recovery belongs to Christian society as it 
learns the wise exercise of sympathy and the energy of 
its own expectant faith in the latent moral capacity of 
those who have failed. 

Here in the lesson we have life-size moving pictures of 
these moral principles. We see them in action. Simon the 
Pharisee, haughty, supercilious, withholding in grudging 
fashion the common courtesies from the guest he had bid- 
den to his home because of his fancied superiority to this 



HIS METHOD 193 

humble man of Nazareth, furnishes us a full-page, life-size 
illustration of how it ought not to be done. 

The chivalry of the Christ even toward the woman who 
had forfeited her rightful claims to consideration by her infi- 
delity to womanly ideals and his oft-proclaimed message of 
hope for those who had failed drew to his feet a woman of 
the town. The personal atmosphere of moral recovery 7 which 
he bore with him drew all manner of need within its range. 

" Behold a woman in the city who was a sinner" (per- 
sonally and professionally " a sinner," Luke says in the 
designating word he chose) " stood at his feet weeping." 
Her name is withheld, thus delicately veiling her identity — 
it was enough that she was " a woman " in distress. 

The woman had been morally awakened by some word 
or look of the Master and now she stole in with a bottle of 
fragrant ointment, purchased, it may be, alas! for an un- 
holy use. She came to anoint his feet as an act of grati- 
tude. The fact that she wetted his feet with her tears 
was no part of her plan, but when she actually approached 
the One to whom she owed so much her feelings overcame 
her. Her tears fell upon the Master's feet until vexed 
with herself at this display of emotion she brushed them 
away with her hair. 

Then the haughty Pharisee thought and felt and looked 
and all but said — " This man if he were a prophet would 
have known what manner of woman this is that toucheth 
him, for she is a sinner." This uncharitable attitude 
called out the Master's parable of the two debtors, one 
to whom much was forgiven and the other but little, with 
the varying results in the measure of appreciation shown. 
And then he made a telling application of the principles 
involved to the moral situation immediately at hand. 

Luke more than any other of the Gospel writers was a 
lover of the bold contrast, the striking antithesis, in the 



194 THE MASTER'S WAY 

portrayal of some mighty truth. He loved to hang two 
pictures on his wall, which by their contrasting lights and 
shades would bring out in effective fashion the lesson he 
would teach. 

In this narrative we find the companion portraits of the 
haughty Simon and the penitent woman. " I entered into 
thy house" with all the claims of an invited guest — the 
woman came in from the street! " Thou gavest me no 
water " — "she hath washed my feet with her tears. 1 ' "Thou 
gavest me no kiss " upon the cheek after the manner of the 
East — "she hath kissed my feet." "My head with oil" 
the cheap, common olive oil is indicated by the word em- 
ployed — " thou didst not anoint " — " she hath anointed 
my feet " with costly and fragrant " ointment." 

How the words stand out in bold relief, each one making 
clearer the full implications of its fellow! House — street! 
Water — tears! Head — feet! Oil — ointment! It was 
left to this woman of the town, scorned by the respecta- 
ble Pharisee, to enter unbidden and to supply the lack 
left by his rudeness. She did the honors of his house to 
his own invited guest. She gave of her best to the One 
who had opened for her the door of hope. 

A great sinner and a great Saviour! And as a conse- 
quence of the relation into which human need and divine 
help were here brought, a great gratitude! This gratitude 
found such beautiful expression as to make this passage 
a classic of penitent devotion. 

" The publicans and harlots go into the Kingdom of God 
before you." It was no wild threat or empty boast as to 
the possible efficacy of that redemption which he was to 
accomplish. Here in actual life his word was fulfilled before 
their eyes. The publicans and harlots enter the Kingdom 
not in their vileness but forgiven and renewed. The sense 
of utter helplessness impelling them to cast themselves 



HIS METHOD 195 

unreservedly upon the divine mercy makes the way of 
spiritual advance plain before their feet and they enter 
ahead of those whose respectability obscures recognition 
of their own spiritual lack. 

There are three ways of viewing evil. There is first of 
all the hard way, the wooden way. The followers of this 
method see nothing but the law of righteousness and the 
act of disobedience. They make no allowance for human 
weakness, for long-continued temptation, for mitigating 
circumstance. They are commonly people who have never 
sinned (as they think), never wavered, never doubted, 
never feared, never loved, never lived. There is no hope 
nor help for those who have done wrong, with such as these. 

In the second place, there is the lax way of viewing evil. 
There are people who show an indiscriminate leniency. 
"It all comes in the day's work," they say, " the good 
and the bad, and it is all pretty much alike." Evil is not 
so very bad — it is only good in the making, one of the 
" growing pains " of character. " The drunkard reeling 
down Holborn is nevertheless engaged in a mistaken quest 
for God," as one famous exponent of this roomy doctrine 
had it. The friends of moral concession mix their colors 
until there is neither black nor white — only gray. And 
there is no hope nor help for the guilty in this mush of 
concession and sentimentality. 

There is the third view of those men and women who 
never forget that the difference between right and wrong 
is as wide as the space between heaven and hell. The 
difference between a good man and a bad man is like the 
difference between a sheep and a goat — the goat is a 
different sort of animal altogether. They would never think 
of suggesting that there was not much to choose between 
Mary, the mother of Christ, and this woman of the street 
in Simon's house. 



196 THE MASTER'S WAY 

But they have also a kind of spiritual clairvoyance for 
something in each life better than its immediate showing. 
And this ability to see and to summon forth that better 
self gives them their power to save. His recognition of the 
capacity for holiness in every life gave Christ a wondrous 
power of securing some initiative on the part of the life he 
would redeem, and when that awakened effort was allied 
with his own mighty grace victory was sure. 

14 Her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved 
much." Her sins were not forgiven because she loved 
much — they were forgiven because she forsook them and 
confided in the divine mercy. Then " she loved much " 
because of the forgiveness experienced. 

What a mighty testimony to the redemptive power of 
the Son of God is this straightforward narrative! The 
well-nigh hopeless condition of these unfortunate and guilty 
women baffles the love and skill of modern effort, and the 
Master's success testifies to the greatness of his power. 
He said as one having the authority which is grounded in 
achievement, "Thy faith hath saved thee — go into peace." 
He would have this newly awakened soul embark on an 
endless voyage into the deeper and ever deeper peace and 
joy of acceptance with God. 



XXXIII 
JUDGMENT AND MERCY 

Matt. 11 : 20-30 

Behold, then, the goodness and the severity of the 
Master! Here are words of warning which bite and sting! 
" Woe unto thee, Chorazin and Bethsaida! " If the 
mighty works done in thee had been done in Tyre and 
Sidon they would have repented long ago. It shall be more 
tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom than for thee. 
Here are words of tender sympathy and gracious invitation. 
" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden 
. . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." The same 
affectionate interest now warns and now invites. 

The cities of Galilee here named enjoyed high privileges. 
They saw the lame walk and the blind receive their sight. 
They saw the poor receive the good news and the hearts 
of men renewed by that message of grace which had come 
to their world. And they were to be judged in the light 
of the privileges they enjoyed. When communities or 
individuals walk at high noon, with the sun shining upon 
them in its full strength, their conduct is not to be measured 
by such a rule as might justly be applied to the showing made 
by Tyre and Sidon in the moral twilight they knew. 

The people who live in glass houses or in a glass world 
where the light of heaven streams in must accept the full 
responsibility which goes with high privilege. If they fail 
to respond, they are strictly judged — they are automat- 
ically judged. The light and warmth which make the 
fields green under right conditions parch them to dust when 

197 



198 THE MASTER'S WAY 

conditions are wrong. The influences which soften and 
refine the heart harden it when resisted. 

It is for every city and for every citizen to know the 
day of his visitation. " Mighty works " are being wrought 
today by prayer, by the quiet devotion of faithful lives, 
by churches genuinely set upon the spiritual renewal of the 
common life. The results achieved are not blazoned abroad 
in headlines and red ink as are the incidents of scandal and 
crime. But they are not done in a corner. The man who 
has eyes can see. The man who has ears can hear. And it 
is the business of Chorazin and Bethsaida, of New York 
and San Francisco, of all the cities of Galilee and of all 
the cities of America, to know these " mighty works." 
If we fail in our response, it may be more tolerable for 
Sodom in the day of judgment than for us. 

It has been said by one careful observer of our American 
life, " The criticism of the next generation upon this will 
be, ' How plainly they saw their problems, how ineffective 
they were in solving them.' " If there be no honest 
effort to translate visions into deeds, it were better not to 
have seen the visions. Seeing which is not followed by 
doing becomes a kind of mental and spiritual dissipation, 
not one whit more honorable than physical dissipation 
by the use of stimulants or opiates. The great truth yields 
its full value only as we undertake to express it in terms of 
life. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
them." If mighty works of spiritual achievement are avail- 
able for our inspiration, and we pass by in thoughtless, 
careless indifference, then woe unto us. 

Here between the warning and the invitation is inter- 
jected one of those brief prayers which fell ever and anon 
from the lips of Christ. There are only three sentences of 
it — it is quite unlike what is called sometimes with painful 
and discrediting accuracy " the long prayer " at morning 



HIS METHOD 199 

service — but it touches the deeper levels of spiritual ex- 
perience and sweeps a wide horizon of religious outlook. 

" Hid from the wise and prudent — revealed to child- 
like and uncalculating souls! " There may be an intellec- 
tual thoroughness standing detached from other honored 
faculties of perception which misses the deeper truths of 
life. There may be a prudent estimating of life's values 
with all the painstaking exactitude of the multiplication 
table which nevertheless results in a sorry and misleading 
evaluation. 

Then comes that tremendous sentence bearing upon the 
person of our Lord: " All things are delivered unto me of 
my Father and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; 
neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he 
to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." The deep signifi- 
cance of this verse, which stands also in the same connec- 
tion in the tenth chapter of Luke, is clearly recognized by 
Biblical scholars. The International Critical Commentary 
has this to say of it: "It is impossible upon any principles 
of criticism to question its genuineness or its right to be 
regarded as among the earliest materials made use of by the 
evangelists. And it contains the whole of the Christology 
of the Fourth Gospel. It is like ' an aerolite from the 
Johannean heaven,' and for that very reason causes perplex- 
ity to those who deny the solidarity between the Johannean 
heaven and the Synoptic earth." 

And Professor Sanday of Oxford says, further: "This 
passage is one of the best authenticated in the Synoptic 
Gospels. Yet once grant the authenticity of this passage 
and there is nothing in the Johannean Christology that it 
does not cover." In the face of the tendency to drift 
into a lower conception of the person of Christ it is well to 
ponder these facts. 

When we see those gracious words, " Come unto me all 



200 THE MASTER'S WAY 

ye that labor and are heavy laden," on the printed page or 
hear them read from the pulpit, we can scarcely separate 
them from the noble strains of music to which they are set 
in Handel's " Messiah." How many hearts have been helped 
in their weary quest when that message has been borne out 
to a listening congregation upon the voice of a clear, pure 
soprano! 

When Jesus says, ' Come unto me," he invites the 
movement of the personal life toward that which is central, 
fundamental, vital. He has the right to say " Come." 
When we take the essential qualities of his life and esteem 
them divine, lifting them to the supreme place in our 
thought, we are not misled. He is competent to stand at 
the center of the whole movement for spiritual advance. 
W T hen we have seen him, we have seen the Father. 

It is the call of the laboratory method. The scientific 
man does not stand outside the door, developing from his 
own inner consciousness or from the hearsay of the street 
a priori theories as to how certain chemicals should react. 
He goes straight into the laboratory and makes the experi- 
ment for himself that he may speak with the authority of 
first-hand knowledge. 

The man who is truly scientific in his religious method 
does not view the subject from across the street or from 
the seat of the scornful or from the rear pew in some dimly 
lighted building. He accepts the invitation and enters the 
spiritual laboratory. He takes the materials of religious 
experience into his own hands and into his own heart that 
he may know what religion may mean to the inner life. 
11 Come unto me . . . and learn of me." This is the only- 
way we can learn. The way to learn is to do. The child 
learns to walk by walking with many a faulty step and 
tumble. He learns to speak by speaking with much bad 
syntax and awkward rhetoric at the start. And men learn 



HIS METHOD 201 

to know spiritual realities by making them matters of 
personal experience. 

" Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden 
and I will give you rest." The " rest " named here was 
no idle surcease from toil — the word "yoke" is uttered 
in the same breath. Rest does not mean death. It means 
rather the renewal of power, the invigoration of all the 
energies of life for further and more effective effort. If 
any life, weary and heavy laden, feels that the will has 
gone lame, that the conscience is dulled, that the moral 
vigor is unequal to the demands made upon it, let it come 
unto him that in personal fellowship it may find renewing 
and invigorating rest. In fellowship with Christ there is 
developed the sense of poise, of balance, of moral ade- 
quacy to one's tasks. 

" Take my yoke upon you and learn." Wisdom comes 
not solely nor mainly through reflection — it comes most of 
all through action. The yoke is made for two necks and 
for only two. When we are yoked up and yoked in with 
the Master we learn the deeper lessons of life by the very 
intimacy of our fellowship with him through the sharing of 
a common service. 

" Take my yoke . . . and ye shall find rest." The 
coupling of such terms as " yoke " and " rest " seems 
paradoxical. But the secret of Jesus is conveyed again 
and again in those paradoxes which startle and then repel 
and then, studied more deeply, yield the true philosophy 
of life. The man who " loses " his life in the way Christ 
indicated does for the first time in his history really 
" find " it. If any man would be truly tall he must learn 
to stoop; if he would be great he must serve. " His 
service is perfect freedom " and there is no other liberty 
worth the name. Take his " yoke " upon you and you will 
find " rest " for your soul. 



202 THE MASTER'S WAY 

How much nobler and how much truer to the facts is 
this method than that proposed by the wearied singer of 
the ancient psalm: " Oh, that I had wings like a dove, 
for then would I fly away and be at rest." He saw the 
pain and the evil, the struggle and the sorrow of the world, 
and it wearied him. He wanted to escape. He prayed 
the prayer of the quitter and sought his rest in flight. 

The Master saw the same world full of pain and evil, 
full of struggle and sorrow. He saw the sad lot of the 
weary and the heavy laden. He did not pray for wings 
that he might fly away. He did not pray that his fol- 
lowers should be taken out of the world, but that they 
should be kept. He knew that nothing is ever gained 
by cowardly retreat. We must have it out with these 
temptations and obligations right here. He therefore bade 
men enter into personal fellowship with him that they 
might come off more than conquerors. 



XXXIV 
THE BLIND RECEIVE THEIR SIGHT 

Mark 10 : 46-52 

In one of the great Messianic passages of Isaiah the 
hope of Israel was thus declared. " Behold my servant in 
whom my soul delighteth — I have put my spirit upon 
him. He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard in 
the street. A bruised reed he shall not break nor quench 
the smoking flax. He shall not fail nor be discouraged 
until he shall have set justice in the earth." And then as 
the very climax of his beneficent ministry to human need 
he would " open the blind eyes and bring prisoners out 
from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the 
prison house." Here at Jericho that word was fulfilled in 
the presence of a multitude! 

11 They came to Jericho and as Jesus went out with his 
disciples and a great multitude, a blind beggar was sitting 
by the wayside." He was blind and he was poor. He sat 
in darkness and waited in sore want. His case was most 
pitiable, for he seemed to be entirely cut off from the 
brightness and the gladness of the common life. 

The very approach of Christ seemed to call out need. 
When he sat at Simon's house, the woman whose sins were 
many, whose need of forgiveness was great, was drawn to 
his feet in penitence. When he edged his way through a 
crowded street, robed in helpfulness, the very hem of his 
garment invited the suffering woman's touch of faith. When 
it was noised about that he was in a certain house straight- 
way " all the city was gathered together at the door," 

203 



204 THE MASTER'S WAY 

bringing many that were sick with divers diseases. He 
came to heal the sick and to save the sinful — and his 
very presence was in itself an " effectual calling." 

Here on the Jericho road he elicited the appeal of this 
blind beggar whose name was Bartimseus! " When he 
heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth he began to cry out, 
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." Here was One 
who had opened his ministry with that broad proclamation 
of merciful intent upon his lips — " The Spirit of the Lord 
is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach good 
tidings to the poor ; he hath sent me to bind up the broken- 
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and the 
recovering of sight to the blind." Some faint echo of that 
gracious ministry had penetrated the dark world where this 
sightless beggar lived his desolate life. 

The Master was being received with much acclaim. 
He was moving with his disciples before the multitude in a 
kind of triumphal procession toward Jerusalem. The by- 
standers regarded it as preposterous that a blind beggar 
should in this unseemly manner obtrude his afflictions 
upon the notice of one who stood thus in the public eye. 
" Many charged him that he should hold his peace." 
Bartimaeus was not the only blind man on the Jericho 
road — how blind were those bystanders as to the real 
object of the Master's concern. 

The more they charged the beggar to hold his peace, the 
more he cried out. The effort to repress the sense of need, 
like the effort to compress steam, only serves to reveal its 
full strength. " He cried the more a great deal." Here 
was the rashness, the insistence, the sheer impudence of 
faith born of a desperate sense of need. The faith that will 
not take " No " for an answer is in line for a gracious 
" Yes." " Because of his importunity he will rise and 
give," not because God waits to have reluctance mas- 



HIS METHOD 205 

tered by importunity, but because the importunity reveals 
a quality of soul competent to receive a great answer to 
its appeal. 

" Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. 
And they call the blind man, saying, Be of good comfort — 
he calleth thee." And in that instant there was begotten 
in the soul of that blind beggar a firm assurance of coming 
help. " He calleth thee." The Lord was taking the ini- 
tiative. That fact in itself furnished an ample ground of 
reassurance. " Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen 
you." The ultimate responsibility is with him who is on 
High and not with us. 

Then in further token of his eager, expectant faith, the 
blind beggar " casting away his garment rose and came to 
Jesus." These simple but significant actions on the part 
of the man who was both blind and poor all indicate what 
manner of man he was. 

It was for that blind man the one chance of a lifetime 
and he could not let it pass. He had heard of this Jesus 
of Nazareth as one who ministered to human need with 
such effectiveness that men went away saying, " We never 
saw it on this fashion." He may have heard a rumor that 
when credentials of Messiahship were called for, Jesus 
answered, " The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised 
up and the poor have good tidings preached to them." 
In the face of the possibilities which were there within 
reach of his pathetic appeal, the blind man showed all the 
energy and desperation of genuine faith. 

How much depends upon the recognition and the utiliza- 
tion of an opportunity! Two young men are sent to col- 
lege — they are both exposed to an education. One of 
them gets it, while the other through his own neglect re- 
mains immune. As George Ade has it, " You can lead a 



206 THE MASTER'S WAY 

boy to college, but you can't make him think." Two men 
go up to the Temple to pray. One of them by using his 
opportunity goes away with his heart full of blessings while 
the other man's heart is as empty as it came. There 
may have been forty other blind men that day in Jericho; 
they also may have heard that " Jesus of Nazareth was 
passing by," but they were left in darkness. They did 
not know the day of their visitation nor the line of effort 
which belonged to their peace. 

The street is a noisy place, especially with " a great multi- 
tude " thronging it. But above the distraction Jesus heard 
the heartfelt appeal of human need. He stopped and com- 
manded that the man who made the appeal should be 
brought to him. And when the blind beggar stood before 
him he said, " What wilt thou that I should do? " The 
blind man was ready with his reply. His faith and per- 
sistence were attended by an equal measure of directness. 
" Lord, that I might receive my sight." 

" Jesus said to him, Receive thy sight; thy faith hath 
saved thee." And immediately he received his sight and 
followed Jesus in the way. He asked and he received. 
He sought and he found. He knocked and the door was 
opened unto him. He was blind — now he saw. 

We may take the incident as a symbol of the whole 
healing, redemptive ministry of Christ. He came to take 
the faculties which lie clouded and inert and make them 
fulfill the high function for which they were designed. 
He came to open men's eyes, causing them to see. He 
opened the eyes in this man's head so that the Jordan 
Valley and the hills of Moab, the waving green of the 
pleasant fields and the soft azure of the sky above, the 
forms of his fellow-beings and the benign face of the One 
who had wrought the change in him, all swept into view. 

He opens the eyes of men's minds. When the mind is 



^ 



HIS METHOD 207 

closed against the eternal spiritual verities, when the facul- 
ties of perception hold no vision of God and duty, of the 
efficacy of prayer and the potency of redemption, the 
quickening touch of the Master's Spirit widens the outlook 
of that beclouded mind. A whole universe of truth sweeps 
into view where before there was vacancy. 

He opens the eyes of the heart through awakened and 
widened sympathies. How much of good there is in all 
these plain, unpretentious lives about us when once we 
have eyes to see and ears to hear and souls to understand! 
The social sympathies behold wondrous things in the 
passing crowd. The eye of friendliness ranges freely over 
wide areas of interest and attraction where the cold heart 
of indifference beholds nothing but a fresh occasion for 
being bored. 

He opens the eyes of the soul. The pure in heart see 
God, not because they enjoy the vantage ground of a better 
location in the spiritual universe — they see God because 
they have something to see him with. The heart made 
pure becomes the organ of a beatific vision. " As for me, 
I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied 
when I awake with thy likeness." 

He comes to Jericho and to Jersey City and to all the 
towns of earth that men may have life all the way up and 
all the way in and all the way through. He comes that 
every faculty lying inert and in danger of atrophy may be 
quickened into effective action. He comes that all may 
enter upon that fulness of life which is life indeed. 

When this blind man received sight he " immediately 
followed Jesus in the way." He would make the first 
employ given to that restored power of sight the high task 
of declaring his allegiance by following " in his steps." 
It may be as one legend has it that Bartimaeus became 
a noted, devoted disciple of the Lord, and for this reason 



208 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the narrative of his restoration is thus fully recorded in 
all the synoptic Gospels. 

How far will a similarly bold and persistent faith go 
today in the healing of our physical and spiritual hurts? 
No one knows until he has put it to the test. The Lord's 
arm of mercy is not shortened that it cannot heal with the 
swiftest efficacy. It has seemed to many that we are now 
scratching the surface of great depths of helpfulness which 
await the approach of vital faith as we learn anew how to 
utilize directly mental and spiritual forces in the gaining 
and maintenance of that fulness of life which is the object 
of a universal quest. 



XXXV 
THE LIFE OF SERVICE 

Luke 8 : 1-3; 9 : 57-62; 10 : 38-42 

We have here three snapshots taken of the Master's 
movements. They all throw light upon the mode of life 
to which his followers are called. " He went about [' city 
by city, village by village,' the Greek has it, as indicating 
a systematic tour of evangelization] preaching good tidings 
of the Kingdom of God." 

The prominence of devoted women in the Christian 
movement is remarked. " And certain women who had 
been healed of evil spirits and infirmities ministered unto 
them of their substance." Three women are named, Mary 
Magdalen, Joanna and Susanna, and there were " many 
others." We must not confound this Mary with the 
"Magdalen" as that term is now used — Mary was a 
common name then as now and the distinctive reference is 
geographical. " Such an affliction as virulent demoniacal 
possession [' from whom seven devils had gone out '] 
would be incompatible with the miserable trade of prostitu- 
tion. The woman who was ' a sinner,' Mary of Magdala 
and Mary of Bethany are three distinct persons." 

During this tour of evangelization three aspirants for 
discipleship came. The incidents may not have occurred 
in immediate succession — the grouping may have been 
made because of the similarity of the incidents. The 
first man said in a brisk, confident way. " I will follow 
thee whithersoever thou goest." This sounded well — 
as well as Peter's confident word, " Though I should die 

209 



210 THE MASTER'S WAY 

with thee yet will I not deny thee," which fell to the 
ground before cockcrow as an idle boast. Jesus made it 
plain that we cannot rely upon the enthusiasm of the 
moment as upon that carefully considered consecration 
which counts the cost in advance. 

He indicated to this ready enthusiast that the life of 
service would be arduous. He would not deceive men at the 
start by any illusions — he would have them know exactly 
what they were in for. " The foxes have holes and the 
birds of the air have nests [literally ' roosts,' for the birds 
have nests for only a brief period in each year], but the 
Son of Man has not where to lay his head." 

The Master of men lived in a rough world while he was 
with us — he was a pilgrim and a sojourner. He was born 
in the manger of a stable. He was reared amid the rude 
surroundings of a carpenter's home in Nazareth. During 
his public ministry he was apparently without settled 
residence. He accepted hospitality when it was offered, 
sometimes by the rich, like Zaccheus, sometimes by the 
fairly well-to-do, like Mary and Martha, sometimes by 
those as poor as himself. When nothing better offered he 
slept in the open and ate the raw wheat which his disciples 
plucked in the fields. And when he came to die he did not 
die in a bed — he died on a cross and his body was laid 
in a borrowed tomb. His august life seemed to lack any 
suitable habitation. 

He would have this eager enthusiast understand all 
this — the summons of Christ was a summons to sacrifice. 
In Matthew's Gospel we are told further that the man was 
11 a scribe," one accustomed to the comforts of settled 
residence and regular employ. The call to the wandering, 
precarious, self-denying life which Jesus here indicated in 
brief but telling phrase apparently deterred him and he 
turned back to follow no more with them. 



HIS METHOD 211 

The second aspirant was ready to " follow," but he asked 
for leave of absence that he might first go and bury his 
father. The request seems reasonable, and the apparent 
harshness of Jesus' refusal has been a stumblingblock to 
many. The Chinese, with their strong blend of filial rever- 
ence and of scrupulous regard for the performance of suita- 
ble rites for the dead, regard this as a highly immoral 
passage. It is a " hard saying " and it has to be 
translated several times before the newly awakened Chinese 
convert can receive it. 

We are to remember that it was the custom of Jesus to 
announce principles of action in bold paradoxes, that they 
might attract attention and be remembered. These are to 
be interpreted according to the spirit of them rather than 
pressed on all fours in literal fashion. " Let the dead bury 
their dead " — let those who have never felt the call to a 
more vital form of service attend to those services of 
ceremony which regard for custom prescribes. The Master 
would say that attention to those amenities of private life 
here indicated must yield supremacy and become subordi- 
nate to the demands of spiritual service. 

We are to remember also the elaborate and long-drawn- 
out ceremonies implied in " burying one's father," accord- 
ing to Oriental usage. When the father of one of Li Hung 
Chang's ministers died this public servant asked leave of 
absence for four months that he might attend the funeral 
of his father. He knew that some such period of time 
would be required for the complete fulfilment of the de- 
mands of Oriental etiquette in the matter of funeral ob- 
servance. Bearing in mind the method of Jesus in stating 
principles in bold paradoxes and the extended funeral cus- 
toms of the East, the harshness of his saying is relieved. 

There came a third man, saying, " I will follow thee, 
Lord, but suffer me first to bid farewell to them that are 



212 THE MASTER'S WAY 

at my house." His word indicates that his heart was in 
the past rather than in that future of fellowship in service 
to which his first impulse had summoned him. It is not 
permissible to leave Christ in order to attend farewell 
dinners with our friends. The mood of the man, more 
than his words, seems to be judged. Xo lukewarm need 
apply. " No man having put his hand to the plow and 
looking back is fit for the Kingdom of God." 

11 His hand to the plow! The Master did not use the 
figure heedlessly," as Dr. Jowett said: " Plowing is the 
heaviest work in the toil of the field. Sowing the seed is 
a comparatively easy ministry. Reaping is associated with 
warmth and triumph. But plowing is heavy, laborious 
work. It is concerned with the disturbance of the com- 
monplace, the breaking up of the hard, familiar surface, 
the exposing of the hidden depths to the light and air, 
to the dews and rains of the upper world. So it is in the 
Kingdom of God." The men who are to follow him are 
"to be men of masculine handgrip, of magnificent tenacity 
of purpose, who once they had begun upon a field would 
see the furrow through." 

. We come, then, to the third passage. It records the 
varied attention which Mary and Martha gave the Master 
when he was entertained at their home. It may be that 
this bit is inserted immediately after the parable of the 
Good Samaritan as a further answer to the question, 
' What shall I do to inherit eternal life? ,: Mere action, 
kindly though it be, unaccompanied by the sense of fellow- 
ship with God, leaves the life incomplete. " The enthusi- 
asm of humanity if divorced from the love of God is likely 
to degenerate into mere serving of tables." The habit of 
being troubled with many things may become mere mo- 
tion, rather than effective action in the Master's cause. 
'! Martha received him into her house, and she had a 



HIS METHOD 213 

sister called Mary who also sat at the Jesus' feet and heard 
his word." The " also " seems superfluous and confusing, 
but the sentence might be paraphrased — " Martha gave 
him a welcome and Mary also expressed her devotion in 
her own way." 

It was not a way which commended itself to the older 
and more practical sister. " Martha was cumbered with 
much serving," as zealous, over-scrupulous housekeepers are 
wont to be. "She came up to him" — the Greek indi- 
cates an impatient movement with a dash of temper in it, 
and her words of remonstrance are not in the best breed- 
ing. Her rebuke is addressed not to her sister, but to her 
guest, — " Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left 
me to serve alone? " 

" Martha, Martha" — the very repetition of her name 
indicates an affectionate, kindly remonstrance. The good 
woman, allowing the spirit of a generous hospitality to 
become a burden rather than a joyous privilege, was anxious, 
distracted, harassed beyond what was needful. She was 
too much concerned " about many things." 

How applicable is this word to the burdensome hospi- 
tality in our social life! "The complexity of modern life 
wears out the nerves. What a simple thing eating is! It 
does not require much food to sustain a body for twenty- 
four hours. A few simple dishes, served in a simple way, 
are all that is necessary for health and strength. But we 
love to elaborate. We have developed the act of eating 
into a fine art. We have elaborated the dinner table until 
it has become a burden. We have multiplied the knives 
and forks, the spoons and goblets. We have added to the 
courses, and each course must have its frills and accom- 
paniments until the dinner table threatens to become a 
menace to the health of the nation." 

The sons and the daughters of Martha are everywhere. 



214 THE MASTER'S WAY 

They can scarcely sleep at night in their super-anxiety 
over such questions as " What shall we eat? " and " What 
shall we drink? " and " What shall we put on? " and 
14 How will it look when we get it on? " It is high time 
that the still small voice of spiritual authority should re- 
call them from that mental overstrain busied with " many 
things " which are not " needful " to that " good part " 
which is vital. 

May it not be that the Church of Christ also needs this 
word? It too becomes troubled, distracted, harassed by 
its many societies, its countless forms of activity, its 
multitude of meetings which no unrenewed mind can 
number. It finds itself out of breath, depleted in spirit, 
confused rather than inspired by its many-wheeled machin- 
ery. In some instances it has lost the high art of setting 
the soul in conscious fellowship with the Master to choose 
and to achieve that good part which cannot be taken away. 



XXXVI 
THE RANK AND FILE 

Luke 10 : 1-24 

The Lord sent out two main groups of disciples, the 
first one numbering twelve, the other seventy. The names 
of the twelve are known everywhere. The greatest church 
in the world is St. Peter's at Rome; the court of the Brit- 
ish empire is called the court of St. James; and a multi- 
tude of infants that no man can number are named for 
St. John. But no one can give the name of a single one 
of the other seventy. 

These last are the quiet, nameless, untitled and almost 
unknown people whom Christ sends forth. They are not 
conspicuous enough to get into history or even into the 
newspapers. They never sit on twelve thrones of Chris- 
tian usefulness judging the tribes of Israel. Their names 
will not be found written on the foundation stones of the 
city of God. Their only recognition is that of the Father 
who seeth in secret, yet the rating of the Master ranked 
them above many of the " wise and understanding" in the 
significance their service held for the advance of his 
Kingdom. 

They outnumbered the more conspicuous disciples five 
to one. The number given may have been taken from the 
seventy elders of Moses or from the number in the San- 
hedrim. It is more probable, however, that in this Gentile 
Gospel of Luke they stood for the number of outside 
Gentile nations, of whom the Jews said there were just 
11 seventy." The mere list of so many names in this brief 

215 



216 THE MASTER'S WAY 

record of the Master's work would have required too much 
space, so the names are omitted. They symbolize " that 
great multitude which no man can number of all nations 
and peoples, kindreds and tongues," who by their simple 
fidelity in causing righteousness to bear rule upon the earth 
are to " stand before the throne clothed with white robes 
and with palms in their hands." 

They were all laymen apparently — " babes " in theolog- 
ical understanding, Jesus called them — yet by the genu- 
ineness of their devotion they, rather than " the wise and 
prudent," were allowed to share intimately in the counsel 
and holy activity of their Lord. Unordained, unofficial, 
untitled Christians they were, sent forth to make the world 
better by living the life they had learned from him. There 
are no words of depreciation to be spoken touching the 
valued service of great leaders, but the hope of the world 
rests at last upon those plain people who make up the rank 
and file in the army of the Lord. 

The work of those honored few who write books, endow 
colleges, organize reforms, is spread before us in the news- 
papers with headlines and pictures. Their work has value 
and may justly receive high appraisal. But not all are 
apostles; not all are prophets; not all are workers of 
miracles; not all speak with tongues. There are many 
who walk in what Paul called " an excellent way," whose 
service is altogether of a simpler type. 

They cannot speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels; they cannot understand all mysteries and all 
knowledge; they cannot exercise faith which would move 
mountains. But they can love. They can suffer long and 
be kind. They can act the part of unselfishness and not 
get puffed up. They can bear and believe, hope and en- 
dure all sorts of things for the sake of the cause they have 
at heart. And in this quiet, steadfast devotion to the 



HIS METHOD 217 

highest they see they are steadily moving along a line of 
personal development and of social achievement which 
" never faileth." 

The other seventy went forth " two and two " for com- 
panionship, for mutual counsel and for the supplementing, 
each by each, of possible deficiencies. The whole Christian 
undertaking is social rather than solitary — the man who 
takes pride in flocking by himself has broken with its 
essential spirit and method. 

They went " as lambs among wolves." There was no 
show of sharp teeth, no claws, no deadly guns. They were 
simple, primitive Christians who had never been misled 
by the false note in " The White Man's Burden " nor be- 
guiled by the trick of backing up the offer of a higher life 
with gunpowder. They went as Paul went into Macedonia, 
a troubled region then and now, as Livingstone went into 
the heart of blackest Africa, as John G. Paton went among 
the cannibals of the South Sea Islands. They went as the 
real emissaries of the Cross go in every age, taking their 
lives in their hands, relying upon instruction and persua- 
sion, kindness and moral appeal for the victories they 
were sent to win. 

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal — they never 
have been and in the very nature of the case they never 
can be. The power of moral enthusiasm and spiritual pas- 
sion is destroyed the moment we take the sword to further 
the interests of Him who said, as he was being led away 
to be crucified, restraining his leading disciple from further 
violence, " Put up thy sword." Lambs among wolves, 
gentleness and self-sacrifice pitted against cruelty and 
sharp teeth — it seemed a contest unequal, but it was along 
this line that Christ achieved his successes. 

They were to be men of definite purpose, allowing noth- 
ing to delay or distract them upon their high errand. 



218 THE MASTER'S WAY 

M Salute no man by the way," Jesus said. His words 
sound curt. They have puzzled many a gracious soul. 
But when one sees the well-nigh endless " salaaming and 
kotowing " which make up the full-orbed idea of an Orien- 
tal "salute" he appreciates the meaning of this direction. 
The ambassador charged with affairs of state does not 
allow himself to be needlessly hindered by useless social 
customs, eating up time and strength to no purpose. The 
other seventy were to comport themselves as men conscious 
of their important mission. 

They were sent as forerunners of the Christ " into every 
city and place whither he himself would come." They 
could not speak as did the One who spake as never man 
spake nor live as did the One in whom neither Pilate nor 
all the ages since have found any fault at all. But they 
could tell something of the glad tidings Jesus brought; 
they could show some measure of the spirit they had come 
to share with him. It is an exacting responsibility thus to 
become a representative of the Christ to those hearts into 
which he is purposing to come. It is a solemn thought 
that to some one soul every Christian will be the best 
sample of Christian life that soul will ever know in any 
intimate way. In the propagation of the Christian life 
the method of personal contagion was the uniform method 
of the Master — "As the Father hath sent me, I send 
you." 

This laymen's mission appears to have been immensely 
successful. The seventy came back and reported, " Lord, 
the devils are subject unto us through thy name." They 
had won notable victories over the forces of evil. The sick 
had been healed, the sufferers who were sometimes regarded 
as demoniacs were restored to sanity and usefulness, the 
sinful held by the tight grip of evil habit as in a vise had 
been released, to become free and brave in the cause of 



HIS METHOD 219 

righteousness. All this achieved by those plain people 
who found the forces of evil subject to them when they made 
their effective approach in the name of Christ! 

Jesus rejoiced — literally "exulted," and it is the only 
instance where we are told that he actually " exulted " 
— in the success of the movement. "In that hour Jesus 
rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the 
wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes." He was a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, yet he exulted 
over the moral triumphs of these plain people. 

He spoke in the most sanguine terms, what is to be re- 
garded as a prophetic word rather than a cold statement of 
accomplished fact, of the ultimate success which would 
crown this movement. " I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
from heaven." The ultimate overthrow of the kingdom of 
evil through the power exerted by these plain people satu- 
rated with his spirit stood before his wise eye as a sure out- 
come. " Kings and priests," he said to the privileged 
twelve, " have desired to see those things which ye see and 
have not seen them." 

Then he cautioned the successful seventy against the 
unwisdom of exalting the triumph of an hour above the 
sober significance of the fact that they were definitely 
committed to a certain mode of life. " Notwithstanding, 
in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you — 
rejoice rather that your names are written in heaven." 
The sudden rally which drives back the enemy's line at a 
single point, the swift winning of some hard-fought skir- 
mish, the well-won victory in some one hard-fought battle, 
does not for a moment rank in real significance with the 
permanent enrollment of men and women as citizens of 
that kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom. 

Men may win a victory today and another tomorrow 



220 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and then suffer defeat the third day. Yet all the while, 
because their wills have been brought into harmony with the 
will of God, they may move ahead in the serene enjoy- 
ment of a celestial recognition — they may know that their 
names are written in heaven. Let them rejoice mainly in 
this! It is not the particular deed of yesterday or of the 
day before in the uncertainty of its immediate effect which 
is of most significance — it is the fundamental purpose of 
the life. 

We cannot all be major-generals or be numbered with 
the twelve apostles, with churches in Rome named after 
us and our names inscribed on the walls of the New 
Jerusalem. But every life may catch the spirit of Christ, 
enroll itself under the banner of Christ and by the useful 
service rendered cause the heart of Christ to exult when he 
sees that life coming up to give an account of the warfare 
waged against the powers of evil. 



XXXVII 
LIGHT AND DARKNESS 

Luke 11 : 14-26; 33-36 

The Master had just healed a mute. The malady was a 
mysterious one and the credulous, unscientific diagnosis of 
that day attributed his inability to speak to "a dumb 
spirit." Matthew says that the man was also " blind," 
which complicated the trouble. There seemed to be no 
line of approach to his inner consciousness, and the heal- 
ing of these unfortunate beings seemed to the enemies of 
Christ uncanny. They attributed his success to the devil 
— " He caste th out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of 
the devils." 

They were almost forced to such a conclusion by the 
logic of their position. " A rigid monotheistic religion 
like the Jewish left but one escape from the authority of 
miracles once acknowledged to be such and not mere col- 
lusions or sleights of hand. There remained nothing to 
say but that which the adversaries of our Lord were con- 
tinually saying, that these works were the works of the 
Evil One." 

Jesus does not so much censure the blasphemy of their 
contention as expose the intellectual absurdity of it. 
li Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desola- 
tion. If Satan be divided against himself how shall his 
kingdom stand?" Division means destruction. We learned 
here in America by bitter experience that a nation could 
not continue " half-slave and half-free." The recognition 
of the rightfulness of slavery must obtain everywhere or the 
principle of human freedom must become universal. 

221 



222 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The strong man fully armed guardeth his own and his goods 
are in peace. It is only when a stronger appears upon the 
scene and overcomes him, taking away his armor, that 
those goods can be divided up as spoils. It was manifest 
that " The Stronger " was there upon the scene overcoming 
the power of evil — opening blind eyes, unstopping deaf 
ears, loosening the tongues that were tied in silence, taking 
possession of life after life in the name of a fuller and 
happier mode of existence. The facts could not be gainsaid 
— therefore they were to judge whether or no Satan, the 
reputed head of the whole kingdom of physical and moral 
evil, had taken up arms against himself. 

Jesus claimed to do these mighty works fl by the finger of 
God." It may be that the interpretation of this phrase 
as indicating " the ease " with which it was done (no need 
being felt for the whole " mighty hand and outstretched 
arm " to accomplish the end) is fanciful. Jesus was in- 
dicating in this telling phrase the divine agency in the mat- 
ter. It may be that he was carrying their minds back 
to the scene on the Nile where Moses confounded the 
magic-venders of Pharaoh by works which caused them to 
say, " This is the finger of God." There was the same 
opposition between the power of Jesus and the power of 
Beelzebub as between the powers intrusted to Moses and 
the clever tricks of the magicians. 

Then follows what has been skillfully termed ' The 
Parable of the Vacuum." " When the unclean spirit is 
gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking 
rest" — seeking a soul to rest in — "and finding none he 
saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 
And when he cometh he findeth it empty, swept and gar- 
nished. Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell 
there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first." 



HIS METHOD 223 

The untenanted heart is in peril. The empty life is at 
the mercy of all the evil spirits which are abroad. The 
man out of whom some evil has been cast — reliance upon 
the false stimulus of alcohol, the gambling mania, the lust- 
ful practice, the addiction to morphia — where its place is 
not at once occupied by some more absorbing and worthy 
interest, finds himself restless, dissatisfied, lonesome. He 
misses the companionship of his familiar sin. And unless 
he is occupied and preoccupied by the expulsive and defen- 
sive power of some new devotion, he may speedily find 
himself given over to seven other forms of evil, his last 
state becoming worse than the first. 

The man who has simply " cut it out," repenting of his 
evil-doing without turning to Christ, still suffers from what 
the insurance men call " a moral hazard." The un- 
occupied house is not ordinarily an insurable house. 
Emptiness means peril in things temporal and in things 
spiritual. 

"Sin no more — Enter into peace," indicates the double 
movement of the soul on its effective way from darkness 
to light. The empty life, even though it be swept and 
garnished, is not the saved nor the safe life — the full 
life is the life safeguarded against relapse. " I am come 
that they might have life" — clean, sweet, wholesome 
indeed, but also full and strong — "and that they might 
have it more abundantly." 

There are lives possessed of resource abundant, per- 
petually moving about in a nervous quest of pleasurable 
excitement which only leaves the vacuum of weariness, 
tedium, ennui. In sheer discontent with the emptiness of 
it all they fling themselves away in some wild folly or 
spree in order to escape from the sense of vacancy within. 
The seven spirits come and the last state is worse than the 
first. Such souls need the unifying and occupying power of 



224 THE MASTER'S WAY 

a great life purpose sufficient to hold the situation against 
all comers. 

Here is the old collect as it stands in the revised version: 
" O God who art the author of peace and lover of concord, 
in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose 
service is perfect freedom, grant unto thy servants that 
strength which the world cannot yield, that our hearts being 
replenished by thee we may spend our years in joyous 
usefulness through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord." 

The parable may have had a direct application to those 
Jews. " The old demon of idolatry brought down on the 
Jews the Babylonian captivity and was in turn cast out 
by it. They did not after their return fall into idolatry 
again, but rather endured persecution under Antiochus 
Epiphanes. The emptying, sweeping and garnishing may 
be traced in the growth of the Pharisaic and Rabbinical 
schools between the return from Babylon and the coming of 
our Lord. The re-possession and accession of seven other 
wicked spirits may be seen in their bitter hostility to Christ 
and in all their current evil-doing." 

The saving of many an individual life and of many a 
community turns upon the question of providing adequate 
interests and resources, employments and companionships 
to replace the banished evil. The intelligent physician does 
not undertake to "kill microbes" — that renowned and 
futile task is left to the quack and the patent medicine 
man whose title to recognition is found only on the bill- 
boards — he strengthens the organism that it may itself 
guard the citadel of life, " keeping its goods in peace." 
And this becomes the recognized method of treatment in 
moral maladies. Be filled with the Spirit that ye may not 
be drunken with wine! " Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not 
fulfill the lust of the flesh." 

•• Here comes in the absolute necessity of providing 



HIS METHOD 225 

rational and cheap amusements for the people whom our 
philanthropists are trying to draw off from the saloon and 
the gambling house. Pictures, parks, museums, libraries, 
music, a healthier and happier religion, a brighter and 
sunnier tone to all our life — these are the positive powers 
which must come in with every form of prohibition and 
restraint before our poorer people can be brought to live a 
sensible and sober life." 

" Look at the lives that our rich people live," said Phillips 
Brooks to his congregation, made up mainly of the children 
of good fortune. " It is not any form of prohibition, legal 
or social, that keeps them from degrading and disgusting 
vice. It is the fulness of their own lives, the warmth, glow, 
comfort and abundance of their homes, the occupation of 
their minds, the positive and not the negative, the inter- 
est and plenty which the poor man never knows. Before 
you or I dare blame him we must in imagination empty our 
lives like his and ask what sort of people we should be in 
the squalor of his garret, and the hopelessness of a lot 
like his." 

We find the same principle operating in the matter of 
changing beliefs. The men who have jauntily thrown away 
the convictions which formerly possessed their souls, with- 
out emerging into some more rational and tenable faith, 
are proverbially the ones most liable to be overtaken by the 
worst sort of sophistry and conceit showily offering itself 
to the emptied mind as a philosophy of life. 

The lighted lamp is not put in a cellar nor under a 
bushel basket, but on the lamp stand that it may light the 
house, enabling all those who enter in to see. In like 
manner the light of the inner life is the eye. And that 
there may be light within enabling each man to recognize 
all things in their true proportions and right perspective, 
the eye must be simple, single, straightforward in its work 



226 THE MASTER'S WAY 

of seeing. Where the eye is evil the inner life gropes and 
fumbles in thick darkness. 

The Master then quickly passes from this bold figure to 
the application of the principle to the moral life. Take 
heed that the moral light by which you order your life be 
not darkness. Take heed that those more enduring realities 
are seen in their true proportions and in right perspective. 
The only competent " organ of spiritual knowledge," as 
Robertson pointed out long ago, is " moral obedience." 
If any man wills to do God's will he comes to know the 
truth as it is. If any man will take upon him the yoke of 
Christ, linking up his life with the life of the Master in 
patient, co-operative service, he will learn of him. 

Here are the two contending principles — the darkness 
in which the adversaries of Christ walked as they sought 
to credit his good deeds to the agency of Satan; and the 
light in which those men walk whose eyes and hearts are 
single, simple and sincere. Let the spirit of obedience 
illumine the life within that " the whole may be full of 
light as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee 
light." 



XXXVIII 
THE SHAM AND THE REAL 

Luke 11 : 37-54 

The word " Pharisee " means " separate." The main 
purpose of this church party was separation from every- 
thing non-Jewish. The law must be scrupulously kept. 
There should be no introduction of foreign ideas or prac- 
tices. The least bit of alliance with the uncircumcised 
outsider was taboo. In their devotion to what they be- 
lieved to be Hebraic they were purists of the first water. 

Their strenuous devotion, which was of the letter rather 
than of the spirit, had made their piety legalistic rather 
than evangelical. The essence of religion lay in rule-keeping 
rather than in a certain inward temper and disposition. 
And with misdirected zeal they had imposed upon the 
written law a heavy load of oral tradition which made it a 
burden grievous to be borne. 

The Pharisees were the first to assume an attitude of 
open hostility to our Lord. The reason is plain. His 
indifference to their ascetic practices — " He came eating 
and drinking; " his disregard for Levitical purity — he urged 
and practiced a righteousness which was of the heart; his 
broad, humane use of the Sabbath as " made for man " 
rather than as an item in a certain glove-fitting religious 
regime, all tended to alienate him from the Pharisees. 

Jesus was a faithful, conscientious member of the Jewish 
Church. He had a right to expect that his fellow-members 
would aid him in his mission which included the spiritualiz- 
ing of that ancient cultus of faith and practice. But when 

227 



228 THE MASTER'S WAY 

he came to his own, his own received him not. The lead- 
ing church party of that day arrayed itself in hateful 
opposition to his gracious purpose. 

In turn Jesus denounced the Pharisees with a severity 
which seems almost out of drawing with his customary 
attitudes. His sternest rebukes were not directed against 
the coarse sins of gluttonous men and winebibbers or 
against publicans and harlots. The rebukes, which were 
sharper than any two-edged sword, were directed against 
those high churchmen who were intent upon the corpse of 
religion rather than upon the living soul of it. He called 
them " whited sepulchres," " the offspring of serpents and 
vipers," " blind leaders of the blind," " an evil and adulter- 
ous generation." He saw conscientious men among them, 
but the system they represented was fatal to the interests of 
morality and religion. 

Here in this passage, "A Pharisee asked Jesus to dine 
with him; and he went in and sat down to meat." The 
Master had come straight from his contact with the multi- 
tude where he had been casting out a demon. The Phari- 
see marveled that he should sit down to meat without hav- 
ing observed the ceremonial cleansing. The blue-blooded 
ecclesiastic, more careful of ritual than of moral values, 
more intent upon religious technique than upon the weight- 
ier matters of justice and mercy, felt outraged. He was 
sadly deficient in vital faith and in humane feeling, but he 
had a long, sharp nose for the slightest departure from 
burdensome tradition. 

His objection to the unwashed hands of the Master was 
not hygienic nor aesthetic — it was based altogether on 
ceremonial grounds. When a high and dry Pharisee came 
in from any sort of contact with his fellowmen he scrupu- 
lously washed off the possible defilement which might per- 
chance have fastened upon him. It might be that some un- 



HIS METHOD 229 

circumcised Gentile had touched elbows with him in the 
crowd or had allowed the wanton air to blow directly from 
his objectionable person upon the sacred Pharisee. 

The Master censured the Pharisees for this threefold 
error. 

1. They were giving their main attention to the outward 
forms of religion rather than to those inward qualities of 
mind and heart which are the chief concern of faith and 
conscience. " Ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup 
and platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and 
wickedness. Ye foolish ones! " Did not He that made the 
outside make the inside also? It is easy to see where the 
author of a recent, widely read story found the title for 
his book and the Scriptural warrant for its main conten- 
tion. 

2. The Master censured them because they were giving 
attention to the petty observances of religious usage rather 
than to the weightier matters of faith and practice. They 
were tithing " mint, rue and every herb," but were giving 
small heed to justice and the love of God. They were 
painstaking in their fidelity to the salt, the pepper and the 
mustard on the table of the Lord, but they forgot to eat or 
to serve that bread which comes down from above to give 
life unto the world. 

3. The Master censured them because they were strong 
in condemnation, but weak in sympathy. They could pile 
up huge loads of oral tradition. They could burden the 
consciences of their fellows with fictitious scruples as heavy 
as lead. But they did not themselves touch the moral 
burdens of the race with the tips of their fingers. They 
sat apart in the seat of the scornful, proud, self-righteous, 
contemptuous. 

The common people heard the Master gladly, but the 
Pharisees did not. They called him " Beelzebub " and 



230 THE MASTER'S WAY 

stopped their ears. His teaching was too direct, too vital, 
too disturbing for them. He had the same effect upon 
them that one would have if he left the outside door open. 
There was a draught and too much fresh air for the 
Pharisees. They had never heard it before on that fash- 
ion and they did not want to hear it any more on that 
fashion. 

What an ugly caricature of the fair face of religion looks 
out upon the world from the front of a system where 
artificial distinctions and ecclesiastical etiquette are exalted 
above righteousness of life and kindliness of heart! Genera- 
tions of this misdirected emphasis had produced a race of 
men of whom Jesus said with searching and terrible ac- 
curacy, " This people honoreth me with their lips, but their 
heart is far from me." 

In its inception the Hebrew system of religious purifica- 
tions had value for the moral education of an undeveloped 
people. The use of such symbols aided in establishing in 
their minds a clearer conception of holiness when an ab- 
stract ethical idea would have made no effective appeal. 
But with the writings of the great prophets in their hands 
and with the words of the Master falling upon their ears, 
the educative value attaching to that kindergarten stage of 
a nation's spiritual development had been superseded. 
The painstaking insistence upon an elaborately wrought out 
system of minute observances had become unspeakably 
trivial. 

" Give for alms those things which are within and behold 
all things are clean unto you." The practice of a kindly 
benevolence was a much surer way of keeping their meals 
and their lives free from ceremonial defilement than all the 
washing of cups and pots. 

Jesus then uttered a triad of " Woes " against these 
lovers of sham and pretense. 



HIS METHOD 231 

Woe unto you Pharisees that tithe trifles and pass over 
the weighty considerations of moral life! 

Woe unto you Pharisees that love the front seats of 
honor in the synagogue and gracious salutations in the 
marketplace to which your real character does not entitle 
you! 

Woe unto you Pharisees who are like whitewashed graves 
over which men walk unwittingly to their defilement — 
your insincerity is such that men receive moral damage 
from contact with you all unawares! 

It was a terrible arraignment, but there was cause. 
When the cheap things of life are counterfeited wrong is 
done, but the result is not serious. When the gold coin of 
the realm, the circulating medium of human society, the 
ultimate standard to which all material values are referred 
for final appraisal, is counterfeited, then the result is calami- 
tous. In similar fashion when religion, the coin of the 
realm in the world of moral values, is made a sham, then 
the stream of life is corrupted at the source. 

The formalism of those Pharisees at times became in- 
ordinately cruel. They relieved themselves from those 
immediate duties vital to the maintenance of human in- 
stitutions by a kind of ethical hocus-pocus. If the word 
" Corban " had been pronounced over any possession which 
might properly have been used for the support of one's 
needy parents, the selfish son could retain that piece of 
property without incurring the sense of having broken the 
command of God touching the duty of children to their 
parents. He could by this piece of sleight-of-hand take 
refuge in a religious bankruptcy act provided by "the tradi- 
tion of the elders," relieving himself from the moral ob- 
ligations which rested upon him. 

The Master charged up to that perverted system of the 
Pharisees an appalling amount of evil. " From the blood 



232 THE MASTER'S WAY 

of Abel to the blood of Zachariah who perished between the 
altar and the sanctuary it shall be required of this genera- 
tion." The murder of Abel was the first and the murder 
of Zachariah was the last in the Jewish canon which ended 
with second Chronicles. And the entire system had been 
so misleading that Jesus laid at its door the cruel neglect 
of those divine injunctions designed to make life with all 
its interests safe. 

The Master was real and he sternly insisted upon reality 
in his followers. He had no patience with shams for he 
lived in the open where there was neither pretense nor 
deceit. To this end was he born, and for this cause did he 
come into the world that he might bear witness to the 
truth. When he reckons up his followers therefore he is 
satisfied with nothing less than truth in the inward parts. 



XXXIX 

FAITH DESTROYING FEAR 

Luke 12: 1-12 

"Fear not, only believe." " Fear not — it is your 
Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." " Fear 
not, ye are of more value than many sparrows." The 
Master would lift his disciples above those hindering ap- 
prehensions of disaster into the same serene trust which 
possessed his own radiant life. 

The immediate occasion of the utterances in this lesson 
was the attitude of the Pharisees referred to in the pre- 
ceding chapter. Jesus had denounced their sham religion, 
jabbing his rebukes into their tough hides as if each word 
had been an ox-goad. " And when he was come out, the 
scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon him vehe- 
mently and to provoke him to speak of many things, laying 
wait for him to catch something out of his mouth." And 
because the questions touched upon were live, the popular 
interest ran high — " there was gathered together an in- 
numerable multitude insomuch that the people trod upon 
one another." 

" He said to his disciples first of all, Beware of the leaven 
of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." The term " leaven " 
is used almost uniformly in Scripture as a symbol of evil — 
the one well-known exception being the other use of it in 
the group of parables touching " the Kingdom of Heaven." 
The subtle, pervasive power of evil is here suggested. If 
11 the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven," the kingdom of 
hell is also like leaven in its pervasive and corrupting 

233 



234 THE MASTER'S WAY 

energy. If the principle of evil be introduced into three 
measures of life, it may pervade and corrupt the whole 
lump. 

The particular form of evil-leaven which worked in the 
Pharisaical lump of life was the spirit of insincerity. They 
were the most religious men on earth outwardly — religion 
was their supreme concern — but within they w r ere pos- 
sessed by malice and wickedness. They were " hypocrites " 
and Jesus warned his disciples against their deadly sin of 
insincerity. 

The quality of sincerity for a teacher of religion is the 
cardinal excellence — it is what virtue is to a woman, 
courage to a soldier, honesty to a banker. It is the sine 
qua non — if it is wanting, everything is wanting. If the 
people cannot feel sure that the man means what he says, 
that he is striving to order his own life by the principles 
he urges upon them, that his appraisal of relative values 
as he makes his own determinations is the same as that 
declared in public speech, then his utterances are vain and 
his influence also is vain. " The subtle, commanding ac- 
cent of spiritual veracity," which can come only from " truth 
in the inward parts " is the prime requisite for all such ser- 
vice. " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is 
hypocrisy." 

Jesus indicated not only the wickedness of it, but the 
foolishness of it. The truth is sure to come out at last. 
We live in a world of fact rather than of fancy, and there 
is a steady insistence that the facts shall be known. "There 
is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid 
that shall not be known." This may or may not be at- 
tended by the sudden bursting open of all closet doors 
where skeletons are hid, or by the emptying out of all 
baskets of dirty linen. This is secondary. In the inevitable 
registry upon character (which steadily goes on for good or 



HIS METHOD 235 

ill) in the life of the man who is a hypocrite and in the 
lives of those whom he influences to their hurt, there is 
written a fearful record which one day shall be declared. 

The Master therefore urges upon his disciples the prac- 
tice of a courageous sincerity. They are to live so that it 
will occasion them no dismay that what they have spoken 
in darkness shall be heard in the light, what they have 
whispered in the ear, shall be proclaimed from the house- 
tops. Where the life is genuine it has no fear of daylight 
or of X-rays. 

He knew what temptations they would have to face. 
He knew that the servant would not be above his Lord — 
if they called the Master " Beelzebub " and led him to the 
Cross, the disciples could not count upon immunity. He 
may already have seen tokens in his leading disciple which 
would cause him to hide behind the door in a thrice- 
repeated cowardly denial. He therefore addresses his 
disciples with an especial tenderness — "I say unto you, 
my friends, Be not afraid." 

These men were urged not to be afraid of those who 
might kill the body and after that have nothing more that 
they could do. " Fear Him who after he hath killed hath 
power to cast into hell." The " fear Him " refers not to 
Satan, but to God. The disciples were told to resist Satan 
fearlessly, but not to fear him. There is no teaching which 
indicates that Satan has power to cast into hell. The 
Master is seeking to lift their dread away from these 
earthly enemies and tribunals which have only a limited 
ability to injure up to that Supreme Tribunal whose au- 
thority is absolute. 

In added warning he points out the awful and lasting 
consequences of denying their profession either by insin- 
cerity or by cowardly fear. " Whosoever shall confess me 
before men, him shall the Son of Man confess before the 



236 THE MASTER'S WAY 

angels of God. But he that denieth me before men shall 
be denied before the angels of God." The " confessing " 
of Christ involves something more vital than the mere 
verbal profession of one's acceptance of him. It means the 
open, steady and persistent acknowledgment of our rela- 
tion to him in word, thought and deed as the Lord of our 
lives. And such a genuine confession of allegiance will be 
attended by his open, steady and persistent acknowledg- 
ment of his relation to us as Saviour. 

Knowing the constant tendency of character toward that 
rigidity which makes the work of spiritual repair all but im- 
possible, Jesus here indicated the peril of blaspheming 
against the Holy Spirit. Speaking against the Son of Man 
would be forgiven, but speaking against the Holy Spirit 
would not be forgiven. The reference is not to some special 
form of words uttered; the " unpardonable sin" is not one 
specific act. It consists rather of " speaking against " the 
inner voice of the Spirit, by paying no heed to his admoni- 
tions, until the heart is firm set in the path of disobedience. 

If any man feels troubled lest he may have committed 
the unpardonable sin, let him be assured that he has not 
committed it. His own concern and spiritual unrest are 
hopeful. The sin which hath not forgiveness means that 
inward hardening of the spiritual nature which issues in 
total apathy and indifference. The conscience is atrophied 
and the Spirit is grieved away by this persistent refusal of 
all the overtures of a merciful redemption until the very 
desire for forgiveness is gone. The moral apathy is such 
as to make repentance and renewal not theoretically im- 
possible, but practically improbable and unlikely — this 
is the sin which is " a sin unto death." 

In the face of these perils the Master heartened his disci- 
ples by certain confident assurances. " Are not five 
sparrows sold for two farthings, yet not one of them 19 



HIS METHOD 237 

forgotten before God. Fear not, therefore, ye are of more 
value than many sparrows. Even the hairs of your head 
are all numbered." 

This promise of a personal, minute attention to the needs 
of these myriads of human lives staggers our belief. The 
mind of man is not built on a scale to readily apprehend 
the full content of such an affirmation. But the Heavenly 
Father is an Infinite Father! The scale and range of his 
boundless interest are such as to demand literally an end- 
less array of objects upon which to expend his love. There 
is with him no saturation-point of interest to be speedily 
passed by the increasing number of small concerns. 

The clear word of William James on this point sounds 
the note of an intelligent confidence. " God has so inex- 
haustible a capacity for love that his call and need is for a 
literally endless accumulation of created lives. He can 
never faint nor grow weary as we should under the in- 
creasing supply. His scale is infinite in all things. His 
sympathy can never know satiety or glut." 

When we undertake to picture to ourselves the provi- 
dential interest and care of the Father we sometimes forget 
that he is not such another as ourselves. " Revere thy 
Maker, lift thine eye up to his style and manners of the 
sky." In the light of that larger vision of the eternal 
verities, we may readily believe that he notes the sparrow's 
fall and that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered. 

When these disciples were arraigned before synagogues 
and rulers because of their bold confession of Christ, they 
were not to be anxious as to how they would answer. 
The Holy Spirit would teach them in that hour what to 
say. The promise is made solely with reference to those 
times of trial when they were arraigned by the authorities 
for their faith. 

The lazy minister is not to be encouraged by such a 



238 THE MASTER'S WAY 

promise to go unprepared into his pulpit trusting that if 
he but open his mouth " the Lord will fill it." The Lord 
will fill it with fresh air if the church is well ventilated, 
but he lays upon the heart of the man himself the more 
serious responsibility of further filling it with a helpful and 
inspiring message as a part of the service to which he is 
appointed. The Holy Spirit is an intelligent Spirit, able 
to show reasons for all he does — and the added endue- 
ment of power is bestowed upon those men who have 
shown diligence in using their own powers to the utmost 
in preparing for their high task. 



XL 
CHRIST'S TABLE TALK 
Luke 14 : 7-24 

Jesus uttered his message as he sat at meat and as he 
walked by the way. He wrote his ideals upon the door- 
posts of the house. He fastened his principles for a sign 
upon men's hands. He made his aspirations as frontlets 
between their eyes. He was always about his Father's 
business. 

Here he was being entertained in the home of plenty. 
" One of the chief Pharisees had invited him to eat bread." 
The Master spoke first to the guests when he saw their 
unseemly scramble for the places of distinction. " When 
thou art bidden to a feast, sit not down in the highest 
place. Go and sit down in the lowest place, that he that 
bade thee may say, ' Friend, go up higher.' Then thou 
shalt have honor in the presence of them that sit at meat 
with thee." In the Kingdom of God the pathway of 
humility is the pathway to promotion. The man who 
exalts himself is by that very fact (not as a punishment, 
but by the quality of life produced) abased; while the 
man who humbleth himself is by his quality of life exalted. 

I was once entertained in the city of Kyoto in the well- 
appointed home of a generous Japanese. A formal dinner 
was given for our pleasure, and when we entered the dining- 
room my wife and I were asked to sit in the places of honor. 
We at once took the places designated as we would have 
done in an American home at the bidding of the hostess. 
But we were told next day by a resident missionary 

239 



240 THE MASTER'S WAY 

present at the dinner who knew us well enough to be frank, 
that we had committed an unpardonable breach of eti- 
quette. We did not know the moves in the game as the 
well-bred play it in Japan. We should have gone to the 
lower end of the dining-room and have seated ourselves 
there. The host would then have urged us to take the 
other seats, and gradually we would have allowed our- 
selves to be persuaded, showing that proper measure of 
reluctance required by good breeding, until we were trans- 
ferred to those higher seats at the dinner which were 
originally meant for us. 

The Japanese present passed it over in charitable fashion, 
attributing it to our American deficiency in proper de- 
portment which they believe to be quite common. And 
when we learned, to our humiliation, how such things are 
done in Japanese society*, we felt that we did not need any 
commentaries on this passage in Luke to enable us to 
fully comprehend its meaning. 

" Sit not down in the highest place." What a word for 
those anxious social aspirants who are feverishly eating 
their hearts out in their scramble for preferment at the 
feasts of the Four Hundred! They would consult their 
own interest as well as improve the quality of their action 
by giving sober heed to this principle uttered by One who 
was termed by Lord Chesterfield, " the only perfect gentle- 
man in the history of the world." The " climbers " in 
society are habitually " abased " in the eyes of those whose 
social standing is secure, while those who bend to unselfish 
service from a kindly interest in their fellows are steadily 
exalted. 

The Master then had a word of suggestion for his host, 
so that each man might receive his meat in due season. 
" When thou makest a dinner, call not thy friends nor thy 
kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest haply they also bid 



HIS METHOD 



241 



thee again and a recompense be made." " Lest haply " 
— what delicate and delicious irony! He speaks of the 
possible return of favors as if it were a peril they were in- 
curring instead of being the solid result at which they were 
directly aiming in their studied cultivation of their " rich 
neighbors." The Master did not disdain to use irony at 
times to point his truth and make it sting. He pressed 
home his truth by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of effective speech. 

" Call not " — the verb stands in the present tense as 
indicating a certain habit to be avoided. Men were not 
to be continually inviting their " rich neighbors " who 
would naturally recompense them with reciprocal hospi- 
tality. The rich were not to be omitted entirely from 
invitation, but they were not to monopolize one's hospi- 
tality to the exclusion of those unable to make such gener- 
ous recompense for courtesies extended. 

"When thou makest a feast" — when the heart's best 
energies find expression in some unusual way, " call the 
poor." Let the finest offices of generosity be directed 
mainly to those who need them most rather than to those 
who need them least. 

The uncalculating disposition furnishes the only mood 
competent to exercise the grace of hospitality upon its' 
higher levels. Where the eyes of the host are intent upon a 
possible return of favors, the entertainer of those " rich 
neighbors " may not be showing himself hospitable at all. 
He may be merely doing a little business with his well-to- 
do friends in terms of social value. "It is pleasant to 
entertain one's friends, seemly to entertain one's relatives, 
advantageous to entertain one's rich neighbors" — but 
hospitality cannot stop there without losing its soul. It 
must move on to the merging of all thought of reciprocal 
advantage in that gracious entertainment of the poor, the 



242 THE MASTER'S WAY 

maimed, the lame, the blind, who cannot recompense the 
kindness shown them — it will thus find itself. 

The situation at the Pharisee's table was becoming some- 
what strained by these unconventional remarks of this 
teacher of religion from up country — he was " a Galilean " 
in whom none of the rulers believed. " A painful silence, 
such as may befall a party or even a prayer meeting when 
something too real and searching has been said, had hushed 
the conversation at this dinner table." 

Then there came to the relief of the host and of all 
hands one of those smiling individuals who always carry 
with them a generous supply of small change and of pious 
platitude, to fill up the awkward gaps in polite conversa- 
tion. " Blessed is he," said this complacent gentleman 
intent upon the enjoyment of his dinner without having 
it marred by the intrusion of irritating and impossible 
social ideals — "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the 
Kingdom of God." 

No exceptions can be taken to this statement as a general 
proposition. But the Master was not accustomed to do 
business in the shallow waters of meaningless platitude. 
He at once launched out into the deep and let down his 
net as a fisherman intent upon values fundamental. 

He told them a most unlikely story of a man who made 
a great supper and invited many. The invitations ap- 
parently were accepted. When the time arrived he sent 
his servant to say, " Come, for all things are now ready." 
Then the guests began to offer the most absurd excuses — 
one had purchased a farm, another had bought a yoke of 
oxen and a third had married and was unwilling — for 
some inexplicable reason — to bring his bride to the " great 
supper." 

This is not the way of the world. This is not the way 
people generally deport themselves in the presence of 



HIS METHOD 243 

invitations to " great suppers," especially where the in- 
vitations have been previously accepted. It was by this 
improbable picture of human action that Jesus exposed in 
telling fashion the shameful inconsistency and absurdity 
of those Jews who having reckoned themselves for centuries 
the chosen guests of God were now refusing his own sum- 
mons to that best wine of the feast through their sinful 
preoccupation with " many things." 

The Master answered that easygoing platitude about the 
blessedness of eating bread in the Kingdom of God, by 
asking those men at table with him how much they really 
cared for those high ideals of the Kingdom declared in their 
ears by his own message. What sacrifices were they ready 
to make in the matter of farms or oxen or home comforts 
for the sake of realizing those great ideals that men might 
eat bread in the Kingdom of God! 

He proceeded to show in the further development of his 
story how the claims of these preferred creditors, as they 
regarded themselves, would be set aside to make room for 
the interests of the neglected. " None of those men who 
were bidden (and had then treated their high privilege 
coldly) should taste of the supper." The servant was sent 
into the lanes and streets to call in the poor and the 
maimed, the halt and the blind, that the feast might be 
furnished with guests. 

The neglected classes made eager response. The poor 
had no farms to be viewed. The halt and the blind could 
have no part in the proving of oxen. The maimed by their 
physical deformities may have been precluded from marry- 
ing wives. There was no careless preoccupation here to 
detain them from that interest which was indeed supreme. 

It is pathetic to find that in every case it was a legiti- 
mate, praiseworthy form of interest, rather than some 
wicked, criminal purpose, which held back these fortunate 



244 THE MASTER'S WAY 

men from the enjoyment of the feast of life contemplated 
in the gospel of Christ. How modern it all is! Here is a 
man whose purchase of a country house where he spends 
his week-ends, or his possession of a new automobile, or his 
devotion to a bride beautiful as a June morning, becomes 
the occasion of his leaving his seat in church empty and his 
share of Christian activity unperformed. 

And here, as in so many somber passages of Scripture 
and of history, the privileged showing themselves unre- 
sponsive to the call of duty, are replaced by those who have 
been classed with the unprivileged. " The man with the 
long start in the race forfeits it to some poor straggler 
in the rear." By the judgments of God, here boldly de- 
clared at that dinner table of old, the mighty are put down 
from their seats and men of low degree are exalted. 



XLI 
THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES 

Mark 7 : 24-30; Matt. 8 : 5-13 

God is no respecter of persons or of race prejudice. 
There is no partiality with him. In the light of his moral 
interest, " there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
bond nor free, there is neither male nor female for all are 
one in Christ." He is not " my Father " nor " your 
Father," but " Our Father." 

In the assertion of this broad sweep of the divine interest 
Jesus " arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Si- 
don." He left the Galilean synagogue which had cast him 
out in its petty narrowness and went among the Gentiles 
in that wider freedom which belongs to the mission of the 
Son of God. 

He went quietly " but he could not be hid." Human 
need speedily discovered his presence. There was a woman 
who was a Greek, a Syrophenician by birth, who had a 
little daughter grievously afflicted by one of those nervous 
maladies popularly attributed to daemonic influence. She 
came and fell at the Master's feet, beseeching him to heal 
her child. 

The disciples were annoyed by her persistence and they 
were distrustful as to the Master's willingness to extend his 
help beyond the borders of Israel. They said, " Send her 
away, for she crieth after us." The feeling of race prejudice 
at that time was keen and selfish. The man of strange 
speech was termed a "barbarian" — when he uttered his 
words they were mere " bar bar." 

245 



246 THE MASTER'S WAY 

And the first reply which Jesus made to her appeal 
seemed passing strange. " Let the children first be filled — 
it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto 
the dogs." There was nothing unfamiliar in the sound of 
these words to the ears of the Gentile woman — "dogs" 
was the customary designation applied by Jews to men and 
women of another race. 

It has seemed to many that these words sound harsh if 
not insolent as they fall from the lips of Christ addressed 
as they are to a woman in distress. But we need to hear 
the words in their setting. We need to supply the tone 
of voice and the look which accompanied them. We can- 
not always measure the force nor determine the quality of 
words by rules of syntax. The bare words " children" and 
" dogs " do have a strange sound! 

But the associations of words are everything. When a 
man calls his wife a " duck " she is happy and when he 
calls her a " goose " she is grieved. It would seem to me 
that when Jesus used the familiar term " dogs " he ut- 
tered the phrase with gentle irony as indicating the ab- 
surdity of the boasted superiority of the Jew and registering 
his dissent from it. He would make plain the fact that he 
regarded the stiff race prejudice so common at that time as 
being trivial and ridiculous. The best test of the real 
import of his word is to be found in its effect — and it is 
clear beyond a peradventure that the Gentile woman was 
not offended or repelled; on the contrary, she was en- 
couraged in her appeal. 

Quick as a flash, with a mingling of humor and insist- 
ence, she answered him, " Yes, Lord, but the pet dogs, 
the house dogs" — this is the purport of the special word 
she employed — " under the table eat of the children's 
crumbs." It was more than a quick turn or a skillful play 
upon words — she would take the humble position assigned 



HIS METHOD 247 

her by race prejudice and from under the table assert a 
claim which was habitually recognized. There was place 
and provision for the pet dogs in the household economy, 
and there was a place for Gentiles in the divine compassion. 
The woman had heard not his words alone but his mean- 
ing, and by that meaning she was emboldened to repeat 
her appeal. 

Mother-love is mother-love wherever found — it is not 
orthodox here and heretic there. And the pain of a child, 
be it Jewish or Gentile, makes its appeal to the heart of 
compassion with the same immediacy in every land and 
language of earth. And the divine pity is one whether the 
distress it holds in view is under the Southern Cross or 
near the Arctic Circle. " Have we not all one Father? 
Hath not one God created us? " Unto him shall all our 
need come and come not in vain. The Master rejoiced 
over her persistent faith and the daughter was healed. 

What an object lesson to those narrow-hearted disciples 
who would have sent her away! What an object lesson to 
all men of meager sympathies who would limit their interest 
and the interest of the Universal Father to those whose 
speech and skin and manner of life are like their own. We 
have in our own speech epithets roughly applied to men 
of other races which are as offensive to their ears as was 
the term " Gentile dog " to those outside the Hebrew line. 
So long as " Dago " and " Sheeny," " Nigger " and " Mick" 
fall from the lips of American-born white men, we still 
have need to lay the truths of this lesson to heart. 

Then coupled with this account of the Master's experi- 
ence in the borders of Tyre and Sidon, we have the story 
of the centurion who came interceding on behalf of a sick 
servant. The humanity of the man stands revealed in the 
nature of his mission — he was not making his appeal on 
his own behalf or for any member of his immediate family 



248 THE MASTER'S WAY 

— he was interceding for a sick slave. The ready interest 
of Luke in the fact that Jews and Gentiles alike were 
coming to share in the benefits of the coming kingdom 
causes him to add other details throwing light upon the 
character of this outsider. " The elders of the Jews " 
supported the request of the centurion saying " that he was 
worthy for whom he should do this, for he loveth our na- 
tion and hath built us a synagogue." 

The Master acceded to the request instantly, saying 
" I will come and heal him." But the centurion demurred 
to this generous offer — "I am not worthy that thou 
shouldest come under my roof — speak the word only and 
my servant shall be healed." Then he proceeded to explain 
that he was a man under discipline. He was accustomed 
to take orders in the Roman army where he served and 
to give orders to his subordinates. 

He therefore thought of the whole world as " a camp of 
living forces." He had heard of the deeds done by this 
prophet of Galilee and was confident that " his word was 
with power." He is therefore ready to commit his case to 
the utterance of a command that the sick servant should 
be healed. He will not ask for the visible presence of the 
Master under his roof — he will be content with the bare 
assertion of his redemptive power. He had the modesty 
and the spirit of discipline which belong to the military man 
at his best. 

In its very contrast to some of the treatment he had 
recently experienced at the hands of " his own," the defer- 
ence and the unquestioning trust of this outsider touched 
the heart of Christ. " I have not found so great faith, no, 
not in Israel." The faith of Israel on wide areas had be- 
come clouded by excessive devotion to ritual. The great 
vital realities were obscured by the elaborate attention 
given to the washing of cups and pots, to the tithing of salt 



HIS METHOD 249 

and pepper and mustard. Thus the weightier matters of 
justice and mercy suffered neglect. 

Here is the oft-repeated truth that faith is not intellec- 
tual assent to a series of theological propositions. Faith 
is not the ability to accept as true a certain set of historical 
statements. Faith is rather an attitude of expectant con- 
fidence in the heart making it receptive. It is that attitude 
of expectant confidence on the part of human need in the 
presence of the ultimate source of help, dimly understood 
though it may be, which completes the connection and 
serves as a conductor for that power from above which is 
able to heal and to save. 

Jesus regarded the confident expectation of this soldierly 
man as the first fruits of a great ingathering. He saw as in 
a vision multitudes of these awakened souls who stood out- 
side the lines, coming from the east and the west to sit 
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of 
God. He uttered ever and anon words which show that 
he conceived his mission as being world-wide; he was not 
the founder of another and a better Jewish sect; he came 
to proclaim a gospel which had in it the notes of universal- 
ity and he would project his redemptive power into all 
the nations of earth. 

" But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out." 
Here is the reverse side of the shield! The very breadth 
of the gospel became an offense and a stumbling block to 
the narrow-hearted Hebrews. The very hospitality of the 
Kingdom Jesus proclaimed seemed like a denial of the 
worth of the traditional privilege enjoyed by the haughty 
ecclesiastics. His moral interest was altogether too roomy 
for these spiritual aristocrats, and their stiff prejudice served 
to cast them into outer darkness. 

" The perdition of the respectable," Dean Hodges 
characterizes it in his telling phrase. " That we respecta- 



250 THE MASTER'S WAY 

ble, intelligent, moral, religious folk who attend church 
with regularity may be among the lost, we do not for a 
moment imagine. We take it quietly and confidently for 
granted, every one of us, that we shall be saved. It is 
quite likely that some of the men and women whose names 
we read in the police reports will go to hell. They ought 
to. That is where they belong. But we ourselves — that 
is a different matter." 

The words of Christ open up this question afresh. 
" The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out." The 
privileged shall be held to stricter account because of the 
advantages they have enjoyed. And when they fall so far 
below the persistent faith of the Syrophenician woman or the 
ready confidence of the soldier under discipline, they may 
indeed wonder whether they will sit down in the Kingdom 
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob or find themselves 
elsewhere. The cheap and easy virtue of outward respecta- 
bility and of religious conformity is of no great moment — 
the venture and the heroism of faith is demanded if we 
would possess the Kingdom of God. 



XLII 
WANDERINGS IN DECAPOLIS 

Mark 7 : 31-8 : 10 

We find in this passage a twofold presentation of the 
power of Christ in bestowing life more abundant. There 
was the quickening of faculty in the opening of the ears of 
the deaf man that he might hear and the loosing of his 
tongue that he might speak. There was also the satisfaction 
of normal need portrayed in the narrative of the feeding of 
the four thousand by the faithful utilization of resources 
apparently inadequate. "Who healeth all thy diseases: 
who satisfieth thy mouth with good things! " 

The gospel has come into the world that we might have 
life. It has come to make men alive at more points, 
alive on higher levels, alive in more effective ways. The 
highest benefit to be obtained from fellowship and co- 
operation with Christ comes in that sense of abounding 
life. His familiar statement in the best-known of all the 
parables, " This do and thou shalt live," points to the 
ultimate purpose of his entire ministry to the race. He 
that hath religion hath life, and he that hath not religion 
hath not real life. The highest reward of religious faith 
and effort comes in an enlarged capacity to live. The 
gospel is only accomplishing its full purpose where it is 
making men and communities more thoroughly, richly and 
usefully alive. 

We see this great truth wrought out as in acted parables 
in the two narratives here offered for our study. Here was 
a man who was deaf to the murmur of the pines and to 

251 



252 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the plash of the waves, deaf to the songs of the birds and 
to the laughter of little children. He was living a dull, 
meager, unsatisfying life in a world of unbroken silence. 

In the face of such a lack it was directly in line with the 
main purpose of One who came to recover that which is 
lost that he should put his hands upon this lack of power 
saying, " Ephphatha, be opened." He would open up new 
avenues of approach to that handicapped life that through 
the uplifted gates a fuller message of this world of interest 
might enter into his personal consciousness. The Master 
is saying to every life that hears not the still, small voice 
of the Spirit of the Living God, " Be opened." He would 
have it react under every sort of stimulus visible or in- 
visible, tangible or spiritual. He would have the entire 
world of reality perpetually finding its way into the deeper 
consciousness of every man. 

It is just as true now as it was at the beginning that 
only those who have ears to hear can hear. It is also 
plain that only those whose ears are sensitive can hear well. 
In things spiritual as well as in the case of ordinary acous- 
tic vibrations this principle stands. The world of sense 
and of soul is woven by a single hand throughout; there 
are great natural laws which have their counterpart in the 
spiritual realm. 

When the guilty man and woman " heard the voice of 
the Lord God " as he walked in the garden in the cool of 
the day and " were frightened," the fact was full of 
promise. It showed that they had not persisted in their 
wrongdoing until the spiritual sense was atrophied. They 
could still hear the divine footfalls and fear because they 
had been doing wrong. The terrible plight belongs to 
those who continue in their sins until they neither hear 
nor fear the voice of the Lord. If you sutler because of your 
sins, thank God — it shows at least that you are still alive. 



HIS METHOD 253 

When the ears of this mute on the coasts of Decapolis 
had been opened and the string of his tongue had been un- 
loosed so that he spoke plainly, he immediately began to 
use his new-found powers in spreading the news of his 
recovery. He went about giving thanks to the Author of 
this more abundant life. He would not be restrained by 
the counsel of the Master that he " tell no man." His 
joy overflowed the banks of that restraining word and he 
went everywhere publishing the fact of his cure. 

His joyous word of testimony sounds like a bit plucked 
from some glad r< Te Deum." " He hath done all things 
well; he maketh the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." 
And what better use could be made of blessings received 
than to make them at once widely vocal in the expression 
of personal gratitude, thus pointing other crippled lives to 
the same available source of help? 

In the face of such an achievement as this and with the 
report of it being heralded far and wide we are not sur- 
prised to read in the latter half of the lesson that a crowd 
surrounded Christ, following him in the enthusiasm of the 
hour into a desert place where there was no food. " In 
those days the multitude being very great and having noth- 
ing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him and said, 
I have compassion on the multitude because they have 
now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. 
If I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will 
faint by the way for divers of them came from afar." 

There are a number of reasons why objection is raised 
to the credibility of this narrative of a repetition of the 
miraculous feeding of a multitude. Many scholars insist 
that it is a slightly altered account of the feeding of the 
five thousand recorded in a previous chapter which somehow 
found its way into the collection of materials from which 
the gospels were composed. The verbal resemblances in the 



254 THE MASTER'S WAY 

two accounts are remarkable, a score or more of words and 
expressions being identical in both. The miracle is said to 
have occurred at a time when Jesus seems to have practi- 
cally closed his ministry in Galilee. The causes for the 
assembling of such a crowd and for their continuance with 
him for three days into a desert region seem to be less 
clear in this connection than in the account of the feeding 
of the five thousand. 

Whatever may be the exact truth in the matter — it 
may not be within our power at this long remove to ascer- 
tain — whether there were two miracles, one to satisfy the 
needs of five thousand from five loaves and another to 
satisfy the needs of four thousand from seven loaves, or 
whether the second narrative grew out of certain minor 
variations in the repeated narration of the original occur- 
rence, the more important spiritual lessons symbolized in 
the story of physical occurrences are clear. 

The ready compassion of Jesus took account of the most 
commonplace need. He would not allow a hungry crowd, 
idle wonder-seekers though they were, to pass unnoticed. 
He would not have his followers fretted and forever anxious 
regarding the things they are to eat and to wear, yet he 
knew that we have need of all these things. W 7 hen his 
disciples counseled him to " send the multitude away," he 
refused to send them away fasting lest they should faint 
by the way. He threw the responsibility for meeting that 
mass of need back upon those twelve men whom he had 
in training for a mighty service. " They need not go 
away, give ye them to eat." 

The disciples were naturally dismayed and staggered by 
such a demand upon their ability. " Whence can a man 
satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? " 
they asked. The very statement of the problem seemed 
sufficient to indicate the impossibility of any solution. 



HIS METHOD 255 

Jesus answered, " How many loaves have you? '' They 
did not know, but they went out to investigate. Pres- 
ently they reported " Seven." They told him all they 
knew about that baffling situation and they put into his 
hands all they had in available resource. They were soon 
to learn new lessons as to the wondrous unfolding of ability 
and the multiplication of resource which ensues where men 
put all they have into the service of the highest they see. 

The disciples were still in the primary room of religious 
nurture. They were just learning their first lessons as to 
the reserve power of their Master and of the unrealized 
possibilities in every common situation. It became the 
high office of the Master to instruct them more perfectly 
in the high privileges of that relationship they had come to 
sustain. He would reveal to them the latent energies in 
every field of human experience where need must be met 
from materials apparently inadequate. He would show 
them how latent energies could be summoned into action 
and directed into glorious achievement as they became en- 
listed in an effective co-operation with the limitless energy 
of the Eternal. 

The ancient story of the feeding of a multitude is soon 
told, but the process here symbolized of unfolding and 
developing resource in everyday life when once the life 
stands pledged to the service of the Highest is inexhaustible. 

" What am I? " you hear some man say at the beginning 
of his Christian life. " How many loaves have I, do you 
suppose, all told?" He does not know. No one knows — 
that is to say, no one except the One who creates every 
man with undeclared, unsuspected powers of usefulness. 

The method of the Kingdom of Heaven is like the 
method of a grain of mustard seed. When the tiny thing is 
sown in Mother Earth, it seems like the least of all seeds. 
But when it is grown, having entered into effective co 



256 THE MASTER'S WAY 

operation with the mighty forces of earth and sky, it be- 
comes the greatest among herbs. Let any item of energy 
or resource be brought into real cooperation with the di- 
vine purpose and the possible outcome cannot be foretold. 



XLIII 
THE TRANSFIGURATION 

Mark 9: 2-13 

When any man undertakes to write about the trans- 
figuration and then holds up his sheet in the clear light 
which streams from the narrative in the Gospels, he is ready 
to apply to himself the words of criticism passed upon 
Peter's foolish offer, " He wist not what to say." The holy 
mount is a place to feel, to adore, to aspire, rather than 
to talk. 

In all three of the synoptic gospels the glorious scene 
is cast directly upon the dark screen made by the reference 
of Jesus to the tragic end which awaited him. We see his 
radiant face and his shining raiment against the back- 
ground of the cross. He had been saying, " The Son of 
Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the chief 
priests and be killed," when he led his three intimates, 
Peter and James and John (always these privileged three 
in times of spiritual crisis), up into the mountain apart 
where he was transfigured. 

11 He led them up into a high mountain apart " — the 
physical situation conforming to the leading features in the 
notable spiritual experience they were to enjoy. They 
were to stand on a higher level of feeling, to enjoy a nobler 
mood, to breathe a purer air, to be lifted into the sense of 
a more exalted fellowship. 

Luke tells us that " He went up into a mountain to 
pray, and as he prayed the fashion of his countenance was 
altered." Luke has more to say about prayer than any 

257 



258 THE MASTER'S WAY 

other of the four evangelists. He alone records the fact that 
" as Jesus was praying in a certain place ," his disciples, 
stirred to aspiration by the sight of his devotion, said to 
him when he ceased, " Lord, teach us to pray." Luke 
alone records the parables of " The Friend at Midnight," 
11 The Unjust Judge " and " The Pharisee and the Publi- 
can " who went into the temple to pray, each one throwing 
a flood of light upon this most exalted of all spiritual 
exercises. 

"As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was al- 
tered." With a few swift strokes Luke draws a bold car- 
toon portraying a vast spiritual process. The fleshly atoms 
of the human countenance bow to the supremacy of the 
spirit within. The dull, sordid, sensual look of the man 
careless of all spiritual values is altered when he becomes a 
man of prayer. The months and years come and go, but 
as he prays there comes into his face a more radiant look. 

" There is sometimes in the face a solar light which 
rises from the activity of the higher nature when con- 
science is supreme." Who can say but that when " the 
higher nature is put into full action that radiant look might 
beam from the whole man! " Who that has looked into 
the face of Phillips Brooks in some of those great hours in 
Trinity Church, Boston, as he pleaded with men for their 
souls, or into the face of Maud Ballington Booth as she 
made intercession on behalf of the poor moral failures in 
the prisons, has not seen there the gleams of that " solar 
light " which comes by the supremacy of the higher nature 
within? 

It may be that our Lord, walking already in the shadow 
of the cross and foreseeing the tragic end of his beneficent 
career on earth, felt at this hour an especial need of prayer. 
He went up into the mountain to wait upon the Father 
that he might renew his strength. And there he dwelt in 



HIS METHOD 259 

the power of those high purposes of self-devotement to 
which he had just given expression and in the ennobling 
sense of an exalted fellowship with the Father until the 
radiance of his inner life shone through the temple of 
flesh. 

It is written that when Moses came down from the 
mount with the tables of the law in his hands and in his 
heart and in his hope for Israel, his face shone so that the 
sordid worshipers of the golden calf could not look upon 
him. It is written that when Stephen was on trial for his 
life before the Sanhedrin and was permitted to give a 
reason for the glorious hope that was in him, " all that sat 
in the council looking steadfastly on him saw his face as 
it had been the face of an angel." It is written in the 
annals of age-long and world-wide experience that when 
any life yields itself to the supremacy of the highest there 
comes into the very face a new look of light and joy, a 
veritable spiritual effulgence. If we accept the principle 
underlying these facts of experience and carry it up to the 
nth power, may we not find at the summit the very phe- 
nomena here recorded in the narrative of the Trans- 
figuration ? 

In that high hour there came the sense of heavenly 
visitants and the sound of a heavenly voice. " There ap- 
peared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him." 
The two mysterious presences were named by the disciples 
" Moses " and " Elijah " not perhaps as the representa- 
tives of " the law and the prophets "; they were so named 
because both these famous leaders of Israel had left the 
world in mysterious fashion and all devout Hebrews be- 
lieved that they would mysteriously reappear. 

11 And they spake with him of the decease " — literally 
the " exodus " — " which he should accomplish at Jeru- 
salem." The word is rich in its associations. It marked 



260 THE MASTER'S WAY 

one of the great turning points in the history of Israel. 
And so far had they already come under the power of the 
Christian hope, that death was already regarded not as an 
indignity to be suffered, but rather an achievement to be 
"accomplished"; it was no more an "end of life," but 
an " exodus," a going out, a deliverance from the bondage 
incident to earthly conditions into the promised land of 
freedom. 

And the same heavenly voice which at the baptism made 
itself heard saying, " This is my beloved Son in whom I 
am well pleased ' here again fell upon the ears of the 
wondering disciples with its authoritative credential. 
"This is my beloved Son — hear ye him." It was an 
hour when every spiritual faculty was alert and sensitive — 
and within the range of personal consciousness there came 
unwonted visions and voices. 

Impulsive Peter, feeling that such high privileges must not 
be allowed to pass, but that they should be housed and 
retained for permanent enjoyment, proposed that they take 
up their residence in that favored spot. " Master, it is 
good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles " 
(literally " three huts," temporary dwelling places), that 
these mysterious visitants might be induced to stay. He 
would -build one for Moses, the man of moral insight, who 
at the top of the mount saw the face of the divine and the 
eternal principles of right and wrong, as it were face to face. 
He would build one for Elijah, the man of moral energy, 
who, in the face of a vacillating king swerved by his 
heathen wife from his rightful allegiance to Jehovah and in 
the face of a fickle people halting between two opinions as 
to the relative merits of Jehovah and Baal, stood out 
single-handed, winning his victory there at Carmel. And 
he would build one for Jesus, the Man of moral remedy, 
who in his work of spiritual recovery would achieve what 



HIS METHOD 261 

the law could not do, who would not break the bruised 
reed nor quench the smoking flax with relentless energy, 
but would gather the failures into his affectionate interest 
and make possible for them a glad newness of life. 

The impulsive man was right in wishing to retain the 
benefits of that hour of privilege. But not in " huts," 
were these blessings to be housed and held — these gains 
were to be retained in hearts made fit to serve as dwelling 
places for the divine. The experience became for Peter an 
exalted memory and an abiding source of inspiration. 
" We were eye witnesses of his majesty, for he received 
from God the Father honor and glory when there came such 
a voice to him, ' This is my beloved Son in whom I am 
well pleased.' And this voice which came from heaven we 
heard when we were with him in the holy mount." 

Such hours of high privilege are intended for us all ac- 
cording to the measure of our receptivity. The narrative 
shows us an enlarged and intensified picture of spiritual 
experience which is meant to be representative of the 
privileges open to all aspiring hearts. We, too, may go 
apart with the Master of our souls and walk with him on 
higher levels. We may breathe that upper, purer air. 
We may know and enjoy the diviner moods. We may be 
lifted into the sense of exalted fellowships. And our own 
faces may be illumined by the radiant strength of our devo- 
tions. 

Some face may seem to be made of ordinary clay. But 
that same face may yet see the day when it will shine 
like porcelain with a light behind. The sense of a filial 
relationship to the Infinite Father, the spirit of good will 
toward all one's fellow-beings, and the keen aspiration for 
a holy life may be so real and strong as to cause that 
radiance of soul to shine through its temple of flesh. When 
men pray, really and truly pray, and then give expression 



262 THE MASTER'S WAY 

in daily conduct to the highest they have felt in their 
hours of devotion, the fashion of their countenances is in 
like manner altered. Reflecting as in a mirror the glory 
of the Lord before whom they stand with unveiled hearts, 
they too are changed into the same image. 



XLIV 
THE LUNATIC BOY 
Mark 9 : 14-29 

We should at once term it a case of epilepsy. " He 
foameth and gnasheth with his teeth." The malady was 
intermittent — " Lo, a spirit taketh him and he suddenly 
crieth out." While they were bringing the boy to Christ 
11 the spirit tore him and he fell on the ground and wal- 
lowed." He sometimes suffered from one of these attacks 
most inopportunely — " Ofttimes it hath cast him into the 
fire and into the water to destroy him." 

The malady was further aggravated by the fact that his 
mental and nervous condition bordered upon incipient 
insanity as is not infrequent, and Matthew calls him " luna- 
tic." It was one of those grievous cases, full of mystery 
and of difficulty, which baffle the skill of eminent spe- 
cialists to this hour. We can sympathize with the disciples 
in their futile efforts to effect a cure. 

This appeal for help came hard upon the glorious experi- 
ences on the Mount of Transfiguration. The close connec- 
tion of the two events is noted in all the synoptic Gospels 
and it is significant. The true splendor of life at its best 
does not build tabernacles at the mountain top that it 
may dwell securely apart from the world's pain and grief. 
It gathers to itself the full strength to be gained in such 
places of privilege and then comes down. It descends from 
that higher level where it prayed until its face shone and 
the soul was caught up into the full enjoyment of exalted 
fellowship, that it may heal the hurts along the dusty 
highway at the foot of the mountain. 

263 



264 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The appeal was heartfelt — it was the voice of a father 
interceding for his child. He plead not for himself but for 
that other life for whose very existence he was responsible. 
His painful narrative of the child's sufferings fairly bleeds. 
When Jesus asked, " How long is it since this came to him?" 
the stored up anguish of years was in his terse reply — 
14 Of a child! " 

His sense of need was desperate; he had heard of the 
marvelous cures wrought by this Man of Galilee, yet fac- 
ing the staggering difficulties of the case, he is torn by a 
profound distrust. " If thou canst do anything " — he 
was uncertain for it seemed too good to be true — " if 
thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help 
us. 

Jesus promptly indicated that the possibility of a cure 
would turn upon the father's own attitude of heart. The 
determining conditions would be found there rather than in 
Christ. "If thou canst do anything" — the father cried! 
Nay, rather, " If thou canst believe," replied the Master! 
He demanded faith as well as sympathetic interest; he 
made confidence in that Source of help to which all our 
need must come at last, the determining factor in the 
recovery of the child. 

Then the man brought out all his reserves of feeling and 
resolve. " He cried out and said with tears, ' Lord, I 
believe.' His heart said that — it could say nothing 
else. But he was a mature man — he had reached that age 
where we no longer leap fences nor leap to conclusions as 
we did in the days of our youth. He was a man accus- 
tomed to weigh his words and in the presence of difficul- 
ties so grave he added in more cautious fashion " Help thou 
mine unbelief." 

What an accurate picture of a modern mood pathetically 
common! The heart of the race deeply conscious of its 






HIS METHOD 265 

spiritual lack, enraptured with the commanding visions of 
the Christian gospel, realizing in the depths of its own soul 
the final and ultimate authority of the Christian ethic, 
cries, " Lord, I believe." Then the cautious, critical in- 
telligence confronted with the sobering demands made upon 
its credence by historical Christianity, unwilling to profess 
assent where full assent is not actually existent, adds some- 
what reluctantly " Help thou mine unbelief." 

The hopeful feature in the situation was to be found in 
the father's readiness to show fidelity to an imperfect faith. 
He had not much faith but he had some, and what he had 
he was ready to use. When any man stands ready to 
pledge what he has to the highest he sees, and to stake 
his all on the best his halting confidence is able to affirm 
as possible, we may look for results. Jesus in the face of 
such an appeal to the Highest rebuked the forces of evil 
which were oppressing the boy and " took him by the hand 
and lifted him up — and he arose." The loving and life- 
giving energy of the Master prevailed where the feebler 
efforts of the disciples had failed. 

When they were alone " his disciples asked him privately, 
Why could not we? " Jesus answered, " This kind can 
come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." There 
was a lack of spiritual vitality. " They had not been good 
enough to make their personality tell." 

"Why could not we?" — in the narrative contained in 
Matthew's Gospel Jesus adds, " Because of your unbelief." 
There was a want of personal confidence in God. The 
spiritual energy which shows itself able to heal and to 
save grows not out of doubts and denials but out of con- 
fident affirmation and glorious trust. If they had pos- 
sessed even " a grain " of vital faith that such a malady 
would yield to the form of help they represented, they 
would have seen mountains of obstacle giving way before 



266 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the advance of their trust. They had seen the glory of the 
Lord shining like the sun in its brightness, but down at the 
foot of that place of privilege they had failed in their 
work. 

11 What shall we do that we might work the works of 
God? " Jesus answered, "This is the work of God that ye 
believe." This was his steadfast insistence. "If thou 
canst believe — all things are possible to him that be- 
lieve th." In these days of resolute and widespread atten- 
tion, by men of science and by men of religion alike, to the 
bearing of mental and spiritual forces upon the healing of 
various physical disorders we are but brushing the surface 
of the hidden depths of divine help here suggested. 

Every minister who has worked in a great city has seen 
the craving for liquor in some defeated life banished 
within an hour by the mighty potencies which are 
called into action by personal faith in God. The prom- 
ise made of old under such different and untoward condi- 
tions, " The spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee and 
thou shalt be turned into another man," is receiving abun- 
dant and unmistakable fulfillment on many a field of effort 
for the recovery of human personality from its load of 
disordered nerves, of depraved appetities, of corrupted 
instincts. 

It would be a loss unspeakable if " the social engineer " 
or " the parochial superintendent " in his scientific manage- 
ment of various agencies for the amelioration of outward 
conditions, rendering them more favorable to the slow 
development of character, should neglect or discount the 
power of the gospel of the Son of God in immediate per- 
sonal regeneration. The intelligent, confident, winsome 
offer of this ineffable privilege to every baffled and broken 
life is indispensable to human progress. 

The Master's service was personal — he did not suggest 



HIS METHOD 267 

the appointment of a " Commission on Epilepsy." He did 
not wait for the establishment of thoroughly equipped 
institutions. " He took him by the hand and lifted him 
up — and he arose." The final symbol of humane service 
is the extended hand, open, friendly, ready to lift. It can 
never be superseded by institutional methods. 

The Master honored and utilized a halting, imperfect 
faith. He helped the unbelief entangled with a bit of 
genuine confidence into something better. " If you have a 
bud on your rosebush that you want should blossom, the 
last device you would think of resorting to would be to 
detach the bud from the stalk and toss it into the air. 
And yet that is precisely what hosts of young people are 
doing today who are questioning — which is perfectly 
proper — but nipping the fiber of connection which would 
unite what they do doubt with what they do not doubt. 
Buds of doubt do not blossom and become conviction," 
says Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, " when separated from the 
live stock of assurance." 

The Master brought out the fact that human incapacity 
to overcome the ills and hurts of society is due not so 
much to the lack of technique as to the lack of genuine- 
ness and thoroughness in the inner life. If any man would 
cast out devils he must by devotion and self-denial first 
cast the devils out of himself. Only then will he become 
competent to take needy lives and lift them up. 

The Master made plain the fact that every hour of high 
privilege must speedily find expression for that which has 
been gained in some form of humane service. It would re- 
main barren and dishonored were it to build itself taber- 
nacles of retreat where it might meditate upon the glories 
of past dispensations and upon the joys of personal en- 
richment in forgetfulness of the lives torn and wretched in 
the plain below. It is for privileged lives to take the un- 



268 THE MASTER'S WAY 

privileged by the hand, by the mind and by the heart in 
the direct clasp of personal sympathy and lift them up. 

The social settlement inspired and sustained from some 
center of religious devotion, the summer camp for needy 
children made possible by the gifts and the personal devo- 
tion of those who have seen the radiant face of Christ, 
the outdoor sanitariums for tubercular patients from the 
crowded warrens of the poor in our great cities, all of them 
showing the word of Christian brotherhood made flesh 
and dwelling among us full of grace and truth, are visible 
projections of the glory of worship and communion into 
patient, lowly forms of unselfish service. 

When Jesus had healed the child and delivered him sound 
and sane to his father, " they were all amazed at the 
Majesty of God." The confident assertion of the suprem- 
acy of the sovereign grace and good will of the Unseen over 
human ills was indeed majestic! 



XLV 
THE RIGHT USE OF THE SABBATH 

Luke 13 : 10-17; 14 : 1-6 

" He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sab- 
bath " — and there came the opportunity for service. It 
was his custom. He was found in the place of worship 
habitually. We read again and again how this custom 
brought him face to face with the human need which had 
come to be near the source of divine help. 

When Peter and John went to the Temple to pray they 
found at the gate called " Beautiful " a cripple laid there 
daily to ask help from those who entered into the Temple. 
Human need just over the threshold from the whole sys- 
tem of divine help represented by the Temple! And on 
that occasion the faith and the sympathy of Peter were 
sufficient to lift that bit of need over the threshold into a 
full realization of God's healing power. The lame man was 
presently " walking and leaping and praising God in the 
Temple." 

There in the synagogue where Jesus taught " was a 
woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years. She 
was bowed together and could in nowise lift herself up." 
Without more careful diagnosis we would say that she was 
either paralyzed or had some spinal trouble. In that earlier 
time when nervous maladies were even more mysterious 
than they are with us, the simple people attributed her 
inability to the presence of some malevolent spirit within. 
They believed that a " spirit of infirmity " had twisted the 
poor woman out of shape so that she could not lift herself 
up. 

269 



270 THE MASTER'S WAY 

She had suffered in this way for eighteen years. Eight- 
een years is a long time for those who are active, but to 
a woman who is sick the time seems endless. She could 
scarcely remember the day when she walked down street 
with the ease and grace of healthy womanhood. The long 
drawn-out illness had twisted her spirit until it also was awry. 

" When Jesus saw her, he called her to him." His own 
sympathetic soul made instant response to the appeal of 
need. And the woman came, creeping and hobbling as 
best she could, for human need with a kind of clairvoyance 
heard in his tones that note of hope which caused it to 
respond. 

When she was near to him, he said: " Thou art loosed 
from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her and 
immediately she was made straight." What a splendid 
deed of mercy! How the synagogue would feel itself hon- 
ored in being made the scene of such a work of recovery! 
How the worshipers there assembled on the Sabbath would 
rejoice in witnessing such a signal expression of the divine 
love! 

Alas, no! There are eyes in which ritual is more beauti- 
ful than mercy. There are noses, keen and sharp, to which 
burnt offerings are more fragrant than deeds of love. There 
are natures which find more joy in the detailed observance 
of a system than in all the unselfish ministry of affection. 

" The ruler of the synagogue " — the head man in the 
church — "answered with indignation because Jesus had 
healed on the Sabbath." He said to the people (and we 
can hear the hiss of bigotry and hatred when we read his 
words aloud), " There are six days in which men ought to 
work — in them therefore come and be healed and not on 
the Sabbath." It seems incredible, yet there it is in black 
and white — in black rather for there is nothing white 
about it. 



HIS METHOD 271 

The woman was "loosed from her infirmity"! What is 
the day for but for loosing? The weary toiler is " loosed " 
from the ordinary grind that he may straighten up and see 
life in truer perspective. The factory hand is " loosed " 
from his machine that he may take his place among his 
loved ones at home for twenty-four hours together and 
realize that he is not a " hand," but a brain, a heart, a 
soul. The mind is " loosed " from the shallow puddles of 
interest in which of necessity it must oftentimes employ 
itself for six days that it may drink from the deep, sweet 
wells of genuine literature and find its needs refreshed. 
The whole workaday world is " loosed " from the pressing 
necessity of striving to make a living, that in places of 
instruction, of worship and of aspiration it may take 
thought concerning the vaster interest of making a life. 
The Lord is in his holy temple loosing his children from 
those disabilities which bow them down — let all the earth 
give thanks before him! 

" She was made straight and glorified God." The day 
was ordained for just that. Remember the Sabbath Day 
and keep it sacred to the high task of making men straight. 
When their backs are bent by remorseless toil let the day 
of rest cause them to stand up straight where the ceiling 
is high and no soul need stoop. When the lower levels of 
experience have left in the inner life many a kink, let men 
come on the Sabbath into the presence of those ideals and 
principles, those moods and aspirations, which cause the 
best within us to stand straight, adding a full cubit to its 
stature. When the mind is bent awry and twisted into 
ugly deformity by false views of life spread before us in 
newspapers, or thrust upon us in the scramble for gain, or 
imposed upon us like ill-fitting garments by the conventions 
of a thoughtless society, let it be bent back into normal 
shape by finer forms of instruction and fellowship on this day. 



272 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The attitude of the synagogue-ruler was so unreasonable 
and inhuman that the Lord exclaimed: "Thou hypocrite! 
Doth not each of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his 
ass from the stall and lead him to water? Ought not this 
woman, a daughter of Abraham (in contrast to the dumb 
beast), bound these eighteen years, be loosed from her 
bond on the Sabbath? " 

Humane considerations take precedence over the demands 
of ritual observance. The night after the earthquake in 
San Francisco twenty-six babies were born in the parks to 
which the people had been driven by the fire. The little 
outfits lovingly prepared by the hands of affection in joy- 
ous anticipation were all destroyed by the flames. And to 
provide for the needs of these children and of their anxious 
mothers twenty sewing machines were running all day the 
following Sunday in the prayer-meeting room of the First 
Congregational Church of Oakland. When I looked in 
upon the busy scene where a score of Christian women were 
unselfishly fashioning the dainty garments, I felt that the 
One who said, " I was naked and ye clothed me," would 
feel that the day had never been more sacredly honored in 
that place of prayer. 

In the other passage here offered for our study the 
minister who had taught and healed in the synagogue is 
invited to share the Sunday dinner with one of the leading 
church members. " He went into the house of one of the 
chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath — and they 
watched him." 

Here again need found him — " there was a certain man 
before him who had the dropsy." When a magnet is drawn 
through sand where there is a sprinkling of iron filings, it 
gathers them all to itself. When the Master of compassion 
moved among the multitudes who thronged him, he drew 
to himself the appeal of need and the touch of faith. 



HIS METHOD 273 

When Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees present, 
"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? " they held their 
peace. They were sullen in the face of this radiant mercy 
which so far transcended their dull, cold piety. They were 
dumb and unresponsive as stone walls when their hearts 
should have leaped at this manifestation of a higher truth 
regarding Sabbath observance. But all undeterred by their 
want of sympathy, Jesus " healed the man and let him go." 

To show the further absurdity and cruelty of their 
position, he added, " Which of you shall have an ass fallen 
into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the 
Sabbath? " The claims of common humanity have the right 
of way, sidetracking all those minor requirements contained 
in the letter of the law because " the Sabbath was made 
for man and not man for the Sabbath." 

The illustration of the unfortunate ass need not be 
pressed on all fours. In one of our Christian colleges a 
sophomore was found studying on Sunday. This was 
contrary to the usage of the institution. The professor 
who had chanced upon him remonstrated with him. But 
the student replied, " We have a stiff examination coming 
tomorrow and I am not ready for it. The Bible allows a 
man to pull his ass out of the pit on the Sabbath Day — 
how much more permissible, then, would be the effort of 
the ass to pull himself out." 

It may be seriously questioned whether the real work of 
education is advanced by studying on Sunday. The men 
who crossed the plains to California after the discovery of 
gold in 1849 found that the observance of one rest day in 
seven was expedient as well as godly. The men who rested 
their ox teams and their horses on Sunday reached the 
Golden Gate ahead of those who had driven straight 
through without a break and their animals were in much 
better condition for the steadily recurring truce of God. 



274 THE MASTER'S WAY 

There is good reason for believing that students who set 
apart the Sabbath for interests and activities more directly 
spiritual will likewise make a steadier advance toward the 
golden key of Phi Beta Kappa. 

The letter may kill the meaning of the day for pietistic 
Pharisees, but the spirit of rightful observance will make 
the human race more truly alive. Let the day be used for 
loosing, for straightening, for healing those lives which are 
bound, twisted and weakened by the rough experiences of 
the other six days. 



XLVI 
LESSONS BY THE WAY 

Luke 13 : 18-35 

Here we have a collection, not a series, of sayings taken 
from the lips of our Lord! His teaching for the most part 
was occasional rather than systematic. He was in the best 
sense an " opportunist " responding to the need of the hour. 
He stood at a wide remove from that orderly, methodical, 
symmetrical style of teaching to be found in universities. 
In these passages we find " lessons by the way." 

In the first we have the grouping of two parables which 
should always be considered together. " To what is the 
Kingdom of Heaven like? It is like a grain of mustard 
seed. It is like leaven." They both proclaim the fact and 
the law of growth. They both illustrate the growth of 
His Kingdom from insignificant beginnings into a moral 
empire which would cover the earth. But they do it with 
a difference. 

The development of the mustard seed into a tree large 
enough for birds to lodge in shows the organized, external 
and visible growth of those influences and institutions which 
have to do with the establishment of the Kingdom. The 
parable of the leaven shows the subtle, invisible energies 
working beneath the surface to permeate and transform 
human society as with a new principle of life. 

In the one case the spread of the Kingdom was like the 
work of the tiny seed as it grew into a splendid plant with 
roots, trunk, branches and leaves, symbolizing in visible 
terms the work wrought by men on behalf of the truth in 

275 



276 THE MASTER'S WAY 

organized fashion. In the other the Kingdom grew as if 
the deft hand of a woman had hidden a bit of yeast in 
three measures of meal. The work was done out of sight 
by the power of that subtle spiritual contagion where one 
life communicates of its best to its fellow, it scarce knows 
how. Both of these methods of work are necessary for the 
perfect accomplishment of that aspiration expressed when 
we say, " Thy Kingdom come — thy will be done on earth." 

We are not to estimate forces by their outward bulk — 
we are to appraise them according to their genuine vitality. 
The size of the force may be like a grain of mustard seed 
which is the least of seeds or like the tiny bacilli of the 
leaven, yet the result may be of commanding importance. 

" What are you doing? " the Sunday school teacher is 
asked as he sits with a group of boys in quiet converse. 
" I am sowing seed," he replies as he drops here an ideal, 
there a principle, yonder an illuminating illustration, further 
on a direct word of appeal. He is sowing seed in that 
eager soil known as " boy life." When he has gone to his 
reward another generation may see stately, productive 
trees of righteousness growing in the midst of the street 
where the tides of civic and commercial life flow swiftly. 
These sturdy trees of righteousness came into being as a 
result of that early planting of good seed. 

11 What are you doing? ,! some member of society who 
makes a business of living a quiet, unobtrusive but potent 
life of Christian devotion, is asked. " I am putting my bit 
of leaven into the lump of life," is the reply. And when 
the people of that community find the whole section of 
human interest touched by that woman's influence made 
more palatable, more wholesome, more nourishing, through 
the leavening power of her fine quality of soul, her word 
is fulfilled. 

The greatest need in the world today is not so much for 



HIS METHOD 277 

a change in the outward structure of our social institutions 
as for the leavening influence of a new spirit within. It 
will matter little whether we are living under a competitive 
system or a collective system, under a capitalist regime or 
under a socialistic regime, if we still remain selfish and 
grasping. In that event the big dogs will get the best 
bones under either system and the small dogs will take what 
is left. 

In the second passage Jesus was " teaching his way 
through cities and villages, journeying on toward Jeru- 
salem," when one said to him, " Lord, are there few that be 
saved? " He may have been a man of idle curiosity, 
merely desirous of an estimate upon the final population 
of the upper and of the under world when the processes of 
redemption had been fully wrought out. He may have 
been one of those men who are always eager to engage in 
a discussion touching intricate theological puzzles. He 
may, however, have been one of the many who carry 
burdens on their hearts. They are asking in the face of 
these searching requirements of Christian standards, " Who, 
then, can be saved? " They are wondering, not so much 
about their own possible fate, as touching the interests of 
some of the dear dead who have passed out of this life 
without having met anything like the full demands of an 
evangelical repentance and conversion. When we listen 
closely we can almost detect a wistful, sympathetic note 
in this serious question — " Are there few that be 
saved? " 

If it were so, as a majority of the theologians of former 
days taught with vigor and rigor, would He not have said 
so? Had the answer to that question been a plain, " Yes, 
only a few "; and had that view been " essential to moral- 
ity," then surely, as Canon Farrar insisted in his famous 
sermons in Westminster Abbey on " Eternal Hope," it 



278 THE MASTER'S WAY 

would have been worse than dangerous, it would have been 
wicked to withhold that fact. 

" But what is the answer of divine wisdom? Is it some 
glaring agony of fire and brimstone for billions of years? 
No — it is a refusal to answer. It is a strong warning to 
the questioner. It is a tacit rebuke of the very question. 
It is the pointing to a strait gate and a narrow way where- 
by alone we can enter the Kingdom of God." 

The silences of Scripture no less than the utterances are 
to be regarded. And the principle of wise reserve here 
maintained by our Lord might well have been imitated by 
some of those fiery preachers who have undertaken to be 
wise beyond what is known. 

The coarse terrorism indulged in by an earlier dogma- 
tism at once fierce and narrow did not in the long run make 
for righteousness. If we should write over against the 
names of those who were impelled to a life of obedience by 
the threats of coming penalty, the names of those other 
souls who were repelled by the unreason and injustice oft 
embodied in such appeals, it may be doubted if the state- 
ment of account would show any balance to the credit of 
such teaching. 

We can scarcely realize today that only a few years ago 
a great and honored missionary organization was almost 
disrupted by the reluctance of certain candidates for the 
foreign field to make dogmatic affirmation on this point. 
But it was found that the appointment of those Andover 
graduates did not " cut the nerve of missions." And today 
the largest contribution received from any one church for 
that Missionary Board comes from a church which has 
been fed for thirty years upon the higher forms of idealism 
connected with the work of foreign missions rather than 
upon the cruder notion of rescue from endless, fiery 
penalty. 



HIS METHOD 279 

But along with his principle of reserve there is the 
utmost seriousness in the reply of Jesus: " Strive to enter 
in at the strait gate. Many will seek to enter and will not 
be able." There would be cases of moral indecision which 
would finally pass beyond remedy. The master of the 
house would have shut the door, not because of any 
arbitrary attitude within — the words indicate rather that 
persistence in evil which becomes determining as to the 
future of the soul. 

There would come men insisting upon their having been 
in familiar contact with Christian institutions — "We have 
eaten in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets " 
— and therefore claiming admission to the Kingdom only 
to be refused for lack of vital godliness. There would be 
11 weeping and gnashing of teeth " when such souls saw the 
saints of old in the Kingdom and themselves thrust out. 
The seriousness and the reserve are equally manifest in 
the reply of Jesus to his questioner. There is no light- 
hearted assumption that because God is so good, all men 
will be saved. There is that reserve which would under- 
take no estimate as to the proportion of those who would 
finally be lost. 

The third passage contains the message to Herod and 
the broken-hearted Lament over the city of Jerusalem. 
The wicked Tetrarch sought to frighten Jesus out of his 
jurisdiction by a threat to kill him. But the Master was 
not deflected from his course because the wicked imagined 
a vain thing. " Go tell that fox," he said in bold arraign- 
ment of his crafty, cruel nature, " that I cast out devils 
today and do cures tomorrow and the third day I shall be 
perfected." He came to do the will of One who sent him 
and he shared in the serenity of the Eternal. 

Then turning toward Jerusalem, which had " killed its 
prophets and stoned " its benefactors, in solemn anticipa- 



280 THE MASTER'S WAY 

tion of its tragic refusal of his own overtures of mercy, he 
utters that word which is like an infinite sob. 

The tender brooding of his spirit of compassion over 
that city which had shown itself so hateful and repellent 
would serve as a fitting prelude to that prayer of pity and 
of hope which he uttered on behalf of the wicked men who 
were torturing him upon the cross. " O Jerusalem, how 
often would I have gathered thy children together as a 
hen gathereth her brood under her wings and ye would 
not! Ye would not! Your house is left unto you desolate!" 
And in that sad hour when he thus uttered his moral an- 
guish over the city that he loved, his own great heart was 
desolate! 



XLVII 

FOUR STRAIGHT WORDS 

Luke 17 : 1-10 

Here are four balls sent right over the plate! The evil of 
causing others to sin — " It is impossible but that offenses 
will come but woe unto him through whom they come." 
The duty of forgiveness — " If thy brother trespass against 
thee, rebuke him; if he repent, forgive him." The energy 
of faith — "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed ye 
might say to this tree, ' Be thou rooted up and planted in 
the sea.' " The outstanding obligation to fulfill one's 
plain duty — "When ye have done all those things which 
are commanded, ye have done only that which it was your 
duty to do." 

The Master frankly faced the fact that through the 
wrong exercise of human freedom evil is inevitable. With 
all his brave optimism he never indulged in any intellectual 
shuffling or in any of those literary flourishes which would 
assert that " there is no such thing as sin, sickness, disease 
or death, except as an illusion of mortal mind." He stood 
ever with his feet firmly planted on fact. " It is impossible 
but that offenses will come." 

But the steady emergence of evil did not blind his eyes 
to the culpability of those who made themselves responsible 
for it. We can do otherwise — therefore we must. "Woe 
to him by whom the offense cometh." It were better for 
him to have a millstone hanged about his neck and be 
cast into the sea than to become responsible for the moral 
lapse of a single soul. 

281 



282 THE MASTER'S WAY 

We cannot escape the law of moral solidarity any more 
than matter can escape the power of gravitation knitting 
all the heavenly bodies into a universe. We are members 
one of another, whether we like it or not. If one man 
sins, other men are encouraged to sin with him. If one 
man is a saint, the whole moral level of that section of 
society where his influence counts receives a friendly lift. 
Woe to that man who vitiates the moral atmosphere about 
him by low aims, meager ideals, petty aspirations which 
never rise above the tree-tops! Blessed is that man, the 
outbreathing of whose soul helps to clear the air! 

" If thy brother sin, rebuke him; if he repent, forgive 
him! " The ministry of forgiveness and restoration is to 
be close linked with that of opposition and warning. The 
hot-lipped censor forever engaged in denouncing other 
men's sins has need to read the verse clear through. The 
high task imposed by Christ is not half performed when 
one has simply uttered his telling rebuke in the face of 
wrong. The work of binding up the heart broken by sin 
and of setting at liberty the will bruised by evildoing still 
remains. 

If I should state openly my own estimate upon the power 
of absolution and of moral recovery resident in human 
sympathy you might not believe me. You might feel that 
I was extravagant. Let me quote One whom you will 
believe! "Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted; and 
whose sins ye retain they are retained. Whatsoever ye 
shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatso- 
ever ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." 

Jesus said that. He said it to flesh and blood. He 
was not entrusting to those eleven faulty men any official 
prerogative like " the power of the keys." He was address- 
ing them as representatives of Christian society. Let the 
Christian element in society — or "The Beloved Commu- 



HIS METHOD 283 

nity," as Professor Royce would say — become careless and 
harsh in its attitudes, binding men and women in their sins 
by its swift condemnation, and those sins which are bound 
on earth become bound in the realm of moral permanence! 
Let the Christian element in society, with that fine insight 
for better things which comes by the exercise of genuine 
sympathy, loose those souls from their sins, and what is 
loosed on earth is loosed in the realm of moral permanence! 
There is a mighty power of moral absolution not official, 
but personal, attaching to the right exercise of human 
sympathy. 

The statute of limitations is not to operate against it. 
"If he sin seven times in the day and seven times repent, 
thou shalt forgive." The number " seven " was the Jew- 
ish number for completeness. Let the forgiveness be com- 
plete in quality, wiping the slate clean with no harking 
back to rake up old scores! Let the forgiveness be com- 
plete in quantity — repeat it indefinitely until the need for 
it shall have been fully met. 

11 Have faith in God! " What a mighty form of energy 
is here suggested! The men of science are speaking these 
days of energy stored in one particle of Radium sufficient to 
lift five hundred tons of pig iron and carry it a mile. 
Here is the Master of the Ages speaking of a tremendous 
energy resident in a form of power subtler and mightier 
than Radium. "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard 
seed, you might root up trees with a word and cast them 
into the sea." 

In our less highly colored method of speech we would 
have said that even a slender amount of faith may ac- 
complish great results. The Oriental lives nearer the sun. 
He speaks habitually of the camel and the needle's eye, of 
the finger of God casting out the devils of nervous disease, 
of the seed-like faith rooting up trees and hurling them 



284 THE MASTER'S WAY 

into the ocean. The truth is the same whatever robes 
it wears. 

The world is entering into a truer appreciation of those 
energies which are suggested by the word " faith." The 
steady utilization of mental and spiritual forces in the secur- 
ing and maintenance of a fuller measure of physical health 
is everywhere. The minds of men are being directed afresh 
to forms of power invisible. The X-rays shining through 
flesh and coat sleeve, through thick book or barn door if 
need be, revealing plainly that which heretofore has been 
hidden from men's eyes, tell us of more forms of light than 
our philosophy had dreamed of. The wireless telegraphy 
enabling the ships to whisper to each other across the sea, 
has shown us that the simple air we breathe has in it 
potencies hitherto unsuspected ready to become the useful 
servants of intelligence. 

In a hundred ways the unseen has come to have a hold 
upon the interest, the imagination and the activities of 
men scarcely equalled in those days of a simple credulity 
which peopled the air with friendly spirits or with threaten- 
ing hobgoblins. The fact that growing knowledge has again 
and again rebuked the dogmatism which would deny all 
efricacy to faith and prayer (believing in its narrow igno- 
rance that the returns were all in when once material sub- 
stance had been weighed on hay scales), has aided in making 
our age more responsive to the claims of faith. 

" Why could not we cast it out? " the disciples asked. 
Jesus answered, " Because of your unbelief." " There is 
no uncertainty in the diagnosis," says Dr. Jowett. " The 
cause is not complicated. It is single and simple. There 
had been a want of confidence. There was doubt at the 
very heart of the disciple's effort. There was a cold fear 
at the very core of his enterprise. Because of your un- 
belief." 



HIS METHOD 285 

Power comes not through the ability to make critical 
denials, but through the ability to make positive affirma- 
tions by faith. We can scarcely set a limit to it. The 
words about the tree are figurative, but their content is 
not one whit too strong. I have a friend here in New 
Haven whose appetite for liquor piled mountain high by 
years of sinful, intemperate indulgence, was rooted up and 
cast into the sea in an hour by the energy of his faith in 
Jesus Christ. From that day to this he has been living 
not only a sober life, but living without that wretched 
craving which once sent him reeling from saloon to saloon 
until it cast him into the gutter. He tells everybody the 
glad story of his salvation through faith in Christ. He is 
giving his life of devoted Christian service to the recovery 
of other men possessed by the same devil which once held 
him fast. Have faith in God — all things are possible to 
him who believes! 

The Master then indicated the clear obligation resting 
upon every man to do that which it is his duty to do with- 
out pluming himself upon it afterward. In his picture of 
the " unprofitable servant " he draws a contrast between 
the spirit of a servant and the spirit of a son. The servant 
did what he was paid to do, neither receiving nor deserv- 
ing any overflowing measure of thanks. The son recognized 
the identity of his interests with those of the One who says, 
11 All that I have is thine." He was ready to go the second 
mile, giving generously of his strength and causing his 
righteousness to exceed the righteousness of the Scribes 
and Pharisees. 

No man's performance can ever exceed his duty because 
it is every man's duty to do his best. The uncalculating, 
overflowing spontaneity of service stands within that higher 
obligation felt by the one who has risen above the demands 
contracted for by the letter into the more exacting liberty 



286 THE MASTER'S WAY 

of the spirit. He is no longer a servant but a son. He 
does that which it is his joy to do. 

The theory of a treasury of surplus merit heaped up by 
11 deeds of supererogation " performed by saints, was only 
a device of ecclesiastical tricksters. They were always 
ready to trade in spiritual " futures," offering them in 
blocks for cash down. The whole scheme was a cruel 
imposition upon the credulous heart hungry for an as- 
surance of divine mercy. When the saints have done their 
best, they have only done that which it was their duty 
to do. 

The work of Jesus and of Paul was done so thoroughly 
that most of us can scarcely realize the necessity which 
once existed for replacing the legalism of a measured and 
sharply defined service by the glad sense of freedom and of 
filial participation in the vast enterprises of our Heavenly 
Father. 



XLVIII 

THE GRATEFUL SAMARITAN 

Luke 17 : 11-19 

How the approach of Christ called out human need! 
He sat at meat in Simon's house and the woman whose 
sins were many was drawn to his feet seeking forgiveness. 
He entered Jericho and the man who was a sinner was 
waiting for him in a sycamore tree as if dimly conscious 
that salvation might "pass that way." It was noised 
about that he was in a certain house and " straightway 
all the city was gathered at the door " bringing " many 
that were sick with divers diseases." He was robed in 
helpfulness, so that the hem of his garment invited the 
touch of need. 

" He was passing between Samaria and Galilee and as he 
entered a certain village there met him ten men who were 
lepers." Nine of them were Jews and one a Samaritan. 
There on the frontier between Galilee and Samaria a com- 
mon malady had broken down race prejudice. Misery 
loves company — in its desperation almost any company! 
Leprous Jews had dealings with leprous Samaritans. 

Ten of them — and all lepers! It was a gruesome sight. 
Lepers are loathsome to the eyes. They are compelled 
by law to shout at the approach of any one, " Unclean, un- 
clean! " Eye and ear and sense of smell are all offended in 
their approach — and no one would touch them. No one 
save the One who showed himself the friend of the friend- 
less, the friend of publicans and sinners, the friend of 
heretics and of lepers! It is recorded by Luke (who as a 

287 



288 THE MASTER'S WAY 

physician felt the full force of it) that " Jesus put forth 
his hand and touched a leper saying, Be thou clean." 
The men who saw it never forgot the thrill which went 
through them when they saw the clean hand of health 
touch the foul body of disease. They caused it to be writ- 
ten for our instruction. 

Jesus felt the same intelligent, sympathetic interest in 
disease that a physician feels. He did not go about shrink- 
ing and shuddering in the presence of human need — he 
stretched out his hand to help. " The whole," as they 
proudly called themselves not knowing their own needs, 
had less interest for him than the sick. He came not 
to call " the righteous," but sinners to newness of life. 
He was a Good Shepherd, and he counted it an honor that 
" he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
He was neither frightened nor repelled by lepers. 

The lepers " stood afar off " as they were compelled to 
do by law. They consequently " lifted up their voices " 
to make their piteous appeal heard. " Jesus, Master, have 
mercy on us." Their forlorn and friendless condition, the 
despair written on their faces, the deep gulf which their 
malady had dug between them and all they held dear, 
would plead like angels with him who came to make men 
whole. 

" When he saw them he said, Go show yourselves to the 
priests." His words mean little to us until they are inter- 
preted, but they were like an Emancipation Proclamation 
to those slaves of disease. In that old theocracy, the 
priests served as a Board of Health. They laid the ban 
and posted the notices touching cases of contagious disease. 
They were empowered to issue certificates indicating that 
the quarantine had been lifted. 

" Go show yourselves to the priests! " It was like a 
bugle note summoning the poor lepers to a feast of hope. 



HIS METHOD 289 

Go and get your clean bill of health! Go and have your- 
selves officially registered and certified as healthy men! 

What a word to fall upon their ears! Away they went, 
for he spoke as one having authority! Tainted they were 
from head to foot, but in high confidence they leaped to the 
task of securing those certificates which would pronounce 
them well. The drowning man catches at a straw and the 
ten lepers in their desperation were ready to act instantly 
upon the word of sympathy, of kindliness and of hope 
which fell from the lips of this Friend of need. 

" And it came to pass, as they went they were cleansed." 
As they obeyed, the blessing came. The cure did not come 
at the word of Christ before they started to show them- 
selves to the priests. The cure did not come at the mo- 
ment when they were to claim from the hands of those 
officials the bill of health. It came somewhere along the 
road. " As they went, they were cleansed." 

This is the common method. The young Christian 
stands up with some misgivings to confess Christ and unite 
with the Church. During the early months of that profes- 
sion of faith he walks with hesitation in the way of serv- 
ice. But as he walks he sees what the obedience of faith 
is accomplishing in his life. The signs of new spiritual 
vigor appear. Prayer is less a duty and more of a privi- 
lege. The work of the Church in Christianizing society 
shines in his eyes as a splendid opportunity. God's 
statutes have become his songs. He made his start in faith 
and he finds himself richly blessed along the way. "Not 
in the great hour of one's petition, but as he trudges along 
the dusty road of life the blessing comes " and the load of 
pain or of sin drops away. 

One of the ten " when he saw that he was healed, 
turned back and fell down at Jesus' feet giving him thanks." 
Only one out of ten! How sharper than a serpent's tooth 



290 THE MASTER'S WAY 

it is! The other nine were more intent upon the bills of 
health than upon showing their gratitude to the author of 
their wellbeing. 

The nine men could not have been entirely without 
gratitude — that would make them monsters of wickedness. 
But they did not give thanks openly and audibly. They 
may have been singing and making melody in their hearts, 
but they did not add a single note of praise to the great 
doxology of thanksgiving rising from a multitude of grateful 
hearts. They were, like so many worshipers in the modern 
church, " silent partners " in the work of praise. 

God cares for gratitude — and for the open expression 
of it. Every one cares! When the slightest courtesy is 
shown a woman, if she be also a lady, she will instantly 
acknowledge it by her "Thank you." Where the service 
rendered is greater, the gratitude felt and expressed will be 
correspondingly great. 

The Master expected gratitude. He was hurt by the 
absence of any open expression of it. " Where are the 
nine? " he asked. Where indeed! They had been blessed 
unspeakably and they had not the decency to come back 
and say "Thank you." The Master repeatedly showed his 
interest in good manners. He rebuked Simon the Phari- 
see for his boorishness when he omitted the common courte- 
sies after he had asked Jesus to eat meat with him. He 
told the disciples to shake the dust off their feet in leaving 
a city which had insolently refused their message — they 
were to assert and maintain the dignity of their calling. 
Here he censures the ill-bred men who failed to express 
their appreciation of favors received. " Where are the 
nine? " 

One came back to give thanks, " and he was a Samari- 
tan." The only one who showed his gratitude was a here- 
tic. The Master praised him and gave him an added 



HIS METHOD 291 

blessing. " Go thy way — thy faith hath made thee whole." 
The grateful man bore with him in his heart a further 
certification to his wellbeing, spiritual as well as physical, 
which the titled priests would have been powerless to 
bestow. 

" And he was a Samaritan! " How readily the eyes of 
the Master looked across the little fences of sectarian 
prejudice which small men build to shut them off from their 
fellows! His banner man in humane service was a " good 
Samaritan." He stood for an hour at a public well im- 
parting some of the noblest truths he uttered to a some- 
what disreputable " woman of Samaria." He said openly 
that there were " publicans and harlots " who having made 
an about face had brighter spiritual prospects than those 
who counted themselves the successors of Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob. 

When we open the heart in giving thanks for blessings 
received, we offer the Lord an opportunity to let fall 
another blessing into our lives. And it always comes! 
The open door of a grateful heart invites an endless pro- 
cession of divine blessings. 

May not the thankless habit and the lack of readiness to 
express in devoted service our gratitude to God for signal 
blessings explain why there are not more answers to our 
appeals? Ten men cry, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on 
us." Then with the warm results of his answering mercy 
coursing through their veins nine of the ten crowd ahead 
into the thick of human activity forgetting to give thanks 
and glorify God by newness of life. 

Where are those nine men who on their sick beds vowed 
that if God would spare their lives, they would give them- 
selves to Christian service? Where are the nine hundred 
in every community who enjoy the benefits of having 
Christian churches open and active, share in the moral 



292 THE MASTER'S WAY 

atmosphere those churches help to create, rejoice in the 
humane and charitable work they do, profit by the stability 
and protection they afford to all commercial and social 
interests, yet fail to glorify the God of those churches by 
honest, consistent membership in some one of them? 
Where are the nine thousand who live under the stimulus 
and culture of a Christian civilization, in constant indebted- 
ness to the colleges, paintings, music and literature in- 
spired and wrought out by the force of Christian motive, 
yet fail to give Christ, the Master and Leader in all these 
benefits, the gratitude of a devoted life? 



BOOK III 
THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 



XLIX 

THE PARABLE OF THE SOIL 

Mark 4 : 1-20 

We call it oftentimes " the parable of the Sower," but 
the attention is concentrated not upon the action of the 
sower but upon the varying reactions secured from the soil 
where the seed fell. The same good seed fell from the 
hand of the same faithful sower, but because some fell 
here and some there, the outcome varied. It would be 
more fitting then to call it frankly " the parable of the 
soil." 

The passage indicates on the face of it and in the in- 
terpretation given it a moment later by the Master himself 
the diverse results secured where divine agencies acted 
upon diverse conditions of mind and heart. Here no result 
was secured; there a result temporary; further on a result 
promising at first but defeated by adverse influence; and 
even where conditions favored, the result varied in genuine 
fruitfulness, yielding sometimes thirty, sometimes sixty, 
now and then a hundredfold. 

The parable shows how the results achieved by the 
truth and grace of God as they fall upon the hearts of men 
are affected by the conditions they find awaiting their ac- 
tion. It is a parable of environment, showing how out- 
ward conditions count for or against the action of even so 
potent an influence as " the Word." May we not give 
the parable an even wider application and think of it as 
the great parable of environment? 

Jesus was not a teacher of sociology — he was a teacher of 
religion. But he was too wise to ignore the influence of 

295 



296 THE MASTER'S WAY 

environment. He knew that where the environment of any 
life is hard or thin or overcrowded with hostile influences, 
the product of the life cast into such a situation must be 
in some measure influenced. 

" Whenever Jesus spoke he found four kinds of hearers — 
the stolid hearer, the sentimental hearer, the sordid hearer, 
the sincere hearer." In " the stolid man " the soil was 
hard; in "the sentimental man" it was shallow; in "the 
sordid man " it was overgrown with the cares of this 
world; and in "the sincere man" it was good enough to 
insure a harvest. 

In all our work we find in corresponding fashion the 
four kinds of environment conditioning the response to be 
secured. We have first the hard environment. There may 
be in such a situation an abundance of genuine worth 
but it offers no openings to the approaching life enabling 
it to gain what it needs. The trodden path across the 
field has untold depths of fertile soil beneath it perchance, 
but the seed cast on that hard spot finds that fertility 
crusted over with an unresponsive surface rendering it of 
no avail. 

The place of toil where honest wages are paid, reasona- 
ble hours observed, sanitary conditions maintained but 
with no sense of pride or joy on the part of the workers 
in their work, with no clear chance of zest and relish in 
the associated effort, with no spirit of kindly good will find- 
ing expression in the organization of that industry, becomes 
an economic environment unrewarding in the higher values. 
The soil is reliable in quality — it would make a good 
showing under physical analysis — but it is hard. 

The home where the steady generosity of the father and 
the wise management of the mother provide every physical 
comfort and all the needed facilities for mental growth 
may be lacking in sympathy, in the fine sense of comrade- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 297 

ship, in the good cheer and spontaneity which belong to 
home life at its best. It then becomes a disappointing 
environment. The texture of this setting for the life may 
be as worthy, as beautiful, as polished and as unresponsive 
as mahogany. The very elegance of an unsympathetic en- 
vironment "takes away" the finer impulse and "it be- 
comes unfruitful." 

Here also was the soil of life which is thin and shallow. 
It was not hard like a concrete pavement where no sort of 
seed would have a chance to grow. It was only too invit- 
ing and receptive. But it was superficial; it had no re- 
serve power; it had no deeper resource upon which to 
draw; its possibilities therefore were quickly enjoyed to the 
full and as quickly exhausted. 

There are stores which put all their fine goods in the 
front window — they are only four feet deep. When a 
customer goes to the counter to make purchases it is a dis- 
appointing quest. The store has no reserve power, no 
hidden resources to be developed and revealed. It may 
interest the careless passer-by " for a time," but his interest 
soon " withers away." 

There are situations into which the life may be cast 
which at once offer a superficial form of satisfaction. But 
the advantages are all on the surface. It is impossible 
for a sturdy life to take deep root or to draw upon re- 
sources of help which will endure. It is an environment 
which responds to the approach of life quickly, and as 
quickly confesses its exhaustion. The scorching rays of a 
hot sun or the opposing influences of tribulation or persecu- 
tion cause the life fed upon this meager source of supply 
to fail. It has not " the depth of earth " needed to offer 
facilities for that deep-rooted life which shall become like a 
tree planted by the river of water bringing forth fruit in 
its season and leaves that never wither. 



298 THE MASTER'S WAY 

There are other forms of environment which are already 
overcrowded with useless and noxious growths. The soil 
is rich and deep — if it were only clean it would offer a 
splendid opportunity for a fruitful life. But the seeds of 
evil have been sown in it. The tares and the thorns have 
pre-empted the best of the fertile forces and the life cast 
there is robbed of its chance. 

What a picture of the modern city! The forms of ex- 
ternal stimulus are innumerable; the forces which act upon 
the life of the individual powerful ; the depth of resource which 
comes by the massing of energy in this highly complex life 
seems all but inexhaustible; the chance for social contact 
is bewildering in its richness; the ministry of dramatic 
presentation, of beauty, of melody and harmony is steady 
and abundant. The kings of the earth bring their glory 
and their honor into the city whose walls are great and 
high. 

But for thousands of city dwellers " the cares of this 
world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other 
things " choke the life and it becomes unfruitful. In this 
rich soil debasing forms of social contact, degrading forms 
of art and dramatic appeal, the ruthless beat of economic 
forces, the corrupting and the maddening appeal of showy 
luxury, all register upon the weaker lives cast there an 
impress which makes powerfully against a satisfying har- 
vest of moral results. The soil is thick, deep, black loam, 
but the thorns and the briars which it sustains war against 
the finest of the wheat. The real harvest fails for lack of 
room. 

The scramble of competing interests in the overcrowded 
environment becomes as deadly to the best results as the 
meagerness of the soil which is too thin. There are souls 
in all our cities going down in defeat under this pressure. 
They meant to be thoughtful, unselfish and devout, but 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 299 

somehow they did not seem to find time and place for the 
quiet cultivation of these enduring values. The world 
was too much with them soon and late, and the final yield 
became a bitter and lasting disappointment. 

But there are lives which in wholesome environments 
find themselves as seed cast into good ground — "they 
bring forth fruit," some thirty fold, some sixty and some a 
hundred. The story of the reaction here is one of a 
mounting success as the varying vigor of each life secures 
from the friendly and co-operating forces into which it is 
cast its own proportionate response. Here the seed has the 
soil to itself unhindered by an overmastering opposition 
and it grows to splendid maturity. 

The seed cast into good ground found its own life princi- 
ple in active, promising co-operation with those universal 
forces, the warmth of the sun, the quickening influence of 
rain and dew, the germinating energy of the soil itself, and 
by this aggregation of energy the rich harvest was won. 

The life of a man cast into a fitting environment, on a 
college campus, in some place of employ where other books 
are kept beside the cash-book showing entries of higher 
values, in some home where sympathetic understanding and 
loyal affection bear rule, in some community of friendly 
neighbors, in a church set for the worship of the Father 
and the nurture of his children, finds itself speedily taken 
up into the grasp of forces beneficent and dynamic beyond 
all estimate. And because the conditions of a harvest 
have been rightly met God gives the increase of all those 
qualities which feed and gladden the needy life of the race. 

The confidence of the individual or of society in the 
power of personal initiative and in the strength of human 
will need not blind us to the potent influence of environ- 
ment. It is the business of society by wise sanitation, by 
abundant facilities for education, by competent and effec- 



300 THE MASTER'S WAY 

tive legislation to make the environment of every life as 
favorable as may be. The fate of the seed in this passage 
as determined by the soil where it fell prefigures the fate of 
the soul which suffers defeat where the soil is hard or thin 
or crowded with evil growths. Let the soil be made deep 
and rich and clean, so far as human energy and ingenuity 
may effect that end! Then each life will have its clear 
chance for growth and fruitfulness. 

In these days of social surveys, of weighty emphasis 
upon " conditions," of studied insistence upon " the eco- 
nomic interpretation of history," we are not in danger of 
forgetting the truth of this parable. The power of the soil 
does not exhaust the account of determining influences — 
even the Son of Man who taught as never man taught did 
not undertake to say everything at once. We find that 
He at once set alongside this parable of environment 
another parable supplementing the teaching. When we 
turn the leaf we find the story of " The Wheat and the 
Tares." But a mighty truth is here contained, a truth 
which those who most exalt the power of personal regen- 
eration must ever bear in mind. 



L 
THE WHEAT AND THE TARES 

Matt. 13 : 24-30; 36-43 

The Master was no impossible idealist. He lived with 
his head among the stars but his feet were placed on the 
solid earth. He was initiating a world-wide, enduring 
religious movement and he could not set the standards 
low. They must be exacting and, for years to come, out of 
reach in order to be effective. The aspirations of men must 
be made to say, " It is high — we cannot attain unto it." 

But he understood also that he must build his Kingdom 
out of human beings, not out of angels. He must commit 
the keeping of the movement into the hands of flesh and 
blood. The very enlistment of followers with their inevita- 
ble limitations would involve the use of much material 
which would not be ideal. He wisely prepared us for all 
this in such passages as the one before us. 

You may sow the good seed of Christian truth with all 
care and zeal but the soil is such that three-fourths of it 
may fail by reason of the hardness, the shallowness, the 
preoccupation it encounters. You may sow the best seed 
to be had in good soil, but while you are enjoying your 
innocent sleep the enemy may come and sow tares. You 
find when you awake, to your consternation and disap- 
pointment, that the crop will be mixed. You may cast 
your net ever so wisely into the sea and draw it with a 
steady hand, but even so, the net will enclose and retain 
the noxious and useless along with the good and wholesome 
fish. 

301 



302 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The great moral movements of history show this ming- 
ling of varied elements. Marcus Aurelius was one of the 
purest of men, leaving utterances which the world grate- 
fully prints with its classics, yet he persecuted the Chris- 
tians more relentlessly than did the wicked Nero. John 
Calvin left a profound impress for good upon his age, yet 
he burned Serve tus. George Washington was the worthy 
and beloved Father of his country, yet he kept slaves. 
The Puritans of New England made a magnificent con- 
tribution to the growth of civil liberty, to the cause of 
education and to the advance of the Kingdom of God, but 
they harried the life out of old women whom they regarded 
as witches. 

Turn where you will, there are knots in the log! It will 
not split just straight. The Master said that the sacred 
efficiency of our best forces would be hindered by these 
admixtures of evil. If men are to raise wheat at all they 
must do it in fields where weeds grow. If they are to 
fish with nets the sculpin and the dogfish will come along 
with the haddock and the bluefish. The Kingdom of 
Heaven is like that, Jesus said — the very agencies which 
God has raised up for the world's redemption are modified 
by the presence of hurtful elements mingled with the 
good. 

This parable of the wheat and the tares does not en- 
courage complacency in the presence of evil. The man 
might be compelled to sow his seed in a field where tares 
would grow but he could go to his work with clean hands 
and a pure heart carrying nothing but good seed. He 
might be compelled to unite with an imperfect church — 
there is no other sort, and a dull tool is better than none — 
but he could at least strive to raise the average of right 
living in that group. The willingness to let tares grow with 
the wheat did not spring from any leniency toward noxious 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 303 

weeds — they simply could not be rooted out as yet with- 
out imperiling the life of the wheat. 

We have here offered us no final solution of the problem 
of evil. The questions of speculative philosophy did not 
come in for direct and systematic treatment from Christ. 
But he differentiated the evil sharply from the good. It 
was not "good in the making"; it was no part of the 
original endowment of human nature as it lay in the divine 
purpose. " An enemy hath done this." The task of 
winning personal character and of building the perfect 
order must be carried forward in the face of opposition. 
How we shall picture " the enemy," with or without horns 
and hoofs; how we shall give him philosophical standing 
within our metaphysics, is a problem left to the individual 
thinker to wrestle with as best he may. 

The tares and the wheat grew in the same place, utilizing 
the same benign influences, the warmth of the sun, the 
moisture of rain and dew and the fertility of the soil, to 
produce results here useful and there hurtful. The love 
of money is a root of all manner of evil, but it also awak- 
ens some of the most wholesome and honorable ambi- 
tions known. The mysterious attraction which one sex 
has for the other leads to the foulest vices and crimes and 
it also lies at the foundation of the fairest institution we 
possess. Where the soil is rich the growth will be abun- 
dant — whether it be full of worth or full of hurt depends 
upon the quality of the life principle. 

The wheat and the tares looked alike as they grew 
together, and for a time equally attractive. If evil were 
always foul and hideous in its aspect it would be more 
easily detected and refused. But the tares are not always 
" monsters of such frightful mien as to be hated need 
but to be seen." They come often in such fair form that 
we first admire and then desire and then embrace. 



304 THE MASTER'S WAY 

11 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and 
that it was pleasant to the eyes." There was no handsomer 
tree in the garden. It is both inexpedient and inaccurate 
always to picture sin as loathsome and repellent — evil 
owes its power to the fact that in its springtime and in 
ours it may seem as fair as some rightful element in life. 
14 All sins have blue eyes and dimples when they are 
young." We wait for the advancing season and the ap- 
proach of harvest to detect the essential difference be- 
tween the wheat worthy of the garner and the worthless 
darnel destined for the burning. 

' The field is the world," Jesus said. The place where 
the good seed of religious truth is to be put down beneath 
the surface and made to grow is not some holy corner in 
this life of ours fenced off and walled in from the rest of 
this common earth. The tired life of the race may enter 
such a place of privilege to renew its strength, washing 
itself clean in a baptism of divine help and feeding upon that 
nourishment which issues from the Unseen, but it lives its 
real life out in the open. The world where men buy and 
sell, employ and are employed, struggle, sin, suffer and die, 
this is the sphere of action for real religion. ' The field 
is the world," for this wider range of human interest is the 
only area which can furnish adequate material for that 
full development of the type of religious growth the Master 
had in mind. And in this vast complexity of interest and 
action the good and the bad elements are mingled in a 
bewildering confusion. 

" Let both grow together until the harvest! ' It is 
impossible either by rigorous ecclesiastical discipline or by 
drastic legal reforms to purge the church and the state of 
those hindering and hurtful growths which militate against 
an abundant harvest. Let both grow together not because 
we are indifferent to the evil growth but because the instant 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 305 

destruction of it would imperil valued interests. The fire- 
brands more intent on burning the tares before the hour 
has come for that judgment than upon raising wheat 
become themselves the enemies of the harvest. The 
odium of carrying a certain measure of unsound teaching 
in the church or a certain measure of unconsecrated ad- 
herents or even the burden of unworthy practice on the 
part of some is an evil less serious than would be the loss 
which would result from an effort to immediately cast out 
all that is unworthy. Let both grow — there is a wise 
patience which is both humane and statesmanlike. 

But this entanglement of good and evil is not to be 
permanent. The day of separation which God has within 
his own power and purpose is on the way. In the con- 
summation of the age the things which offend shall be 
removed. "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels 
and they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that 
offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into 
a furnace of fire." However we may indicate our under- 
standing of the moral equivalents of the various items in 
this pictured program, it would seem as easy to make 
black seem white or white black, as to intimate that the 
Master meant something other than a most somber fate 
for evil. He warns us against that persistence in evil 
which may pass beyond remedy. 

The final separation would be effected " by angels," by 
superhuman agencies. The absolute ideal is not to be 
attained by us in our present stage of development. The 
Master has here given us no hard and fast method of 
church discipline and no definite program for political action 
in the treatment of offenders. He has sought rather to 
inculcate that wise spirit of patience which holds itself un- 
willing to imperil valued interests by its fierce onslaughts 
upon the evil which has become entangled with the good. 



306 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The main lessons of the parable then are these: the 
inevitable mingling of varied qualities in those agencies 
which make for betterment; the ineradicable distinction 
to be kept clear between the good and the evil; the utter 
abhorrence of evil in one's heart or in the world, unmodified 
by any sort of complacency, as being the work of "an 
enemy"; the necessity for wise and discriminating pa- 
tience in waiting for the elimination of the evil that the 
very life of the organism on which it has fastened may not 
be imperiled; and the habit of cordial appreciation which 
constantly regards the growth of the good as being the 
significant fact in the field, yielding that healthy optimism 
which serves as the herald of a gracious harvest. 

Alas for those who can see the tares in the wheat field 
and not see the wheat! There are mudholes in Yosemite 
Valley and there are rattlesnakes and skunks. But in the 
presence of El Capitan and Vernal Falls the healthy mind 
does not dwell upon the disagreeable and the unsavory. 
It is a small nature which habitually bestows its interest 
and remark upon the present defects in the process, never 
catching the vision of that great consummation toward 
which the moral order moves. 



LI 
THE WORTH OF THE KINGDOM 

Matt. 13 : 44-53 

We find these parables of the Kingdom coming in pairs. 
They are rights and lefts, fitting neatly upon a common 
body of truth. They supplement each other in the vary- 
ing accent given to particular aspects of the truth. 

The wise teacher treats his utterance as sailors treat their 
boats. He makes his presentation trim by loading it on 
both sides. The single strong statement standing out of 
all relation to cognate truths becomes oftentimes dangerous 
and misleading. The crank, the bigot or the fanatic is 
developed by having one tremendous truth plumped on one 
side of his little craft. He is not properly stocked and 
balanced; he is not rounded out by other truths, and the 
one big idea he carries capsizes him. The parallelism and 
the antithesis of scripture, the whole habit of supplement- 
ing the one idea by its mate adds to the impressiveness 
and to the effectiveness of the truth thus presented. 

Here in this single chapter we have three such pairs of 
parables. In the parable of the soil, the diligent effort of 
the same sower of the same good seed achieves varying 
results because of the varying character of the soil, hard, 
shallow, weedy or promising. This brings out the power of 
environment as it registers its effect upon the best of 
efforts'. Then the story of the tares, the parable of the 
life principle, where two life qualities were cast into the 
same soil with varying results, balances the former by 

307 



308 THE MASTER'S WAY 

indicating the vital importance of the inner life quality in 
determining the harvest. 

The grain of mustard seed growing into a splendid plant, 
with roots, branches, leaves, all organized into a common 
life, indicates the progress achieved by those visible, tangi- 
ble efforts put forth in organized fashion for the advance- 
ment of the Kingdom of God. Then to supplement that 
teaching in the minds of those who look too much on the 
outward appearance and not enough on the subtle forces at 
work beneath the surface, the parable of the leaven brings 
out in bold relief the mighty influence of those silent, per- 
meative energies which work by spiritual contagion to the 
same high end. 

Here in this story of the pearl of great price we find a 
merchantman whose business it was to buy and sell pearls. 
He found in the regular employ of his trade and in the 
terms of his own daily pursuits that which had supreme 
worth warranting him in making a total investment of his 
ability and resource in order to possess himself of it. He 
represents the men who in the immediate line of their em- 
ployment come upon those spiritual values which stand 
supreme. They are able to construe in terms of that 
which is altogether common and familiar that quality of 
character here symbolized by the pearl of great price. 

But in view of the fact that not all the toilers of earth 
are so happily situated, Jesus portrayed the finding of that 
supreme value in life by another picture. There was a 
man who found his treasure hidden in a field where the 
sheep were grazing, the poppies were in bloom and the 
children were at play. This was not in the line of his 
usual employment or interest — it was indeed a " find." 
But it likewise represented to him the highest value in 
life and he sold all that he had and invested it in that, 
field that he might possess the treasure. That quality of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 309 

life which holds such worth as to warrant the investment 
of one's total energy may not lie for every man immediately 
in the line of his customary activity. 

We are grateful to the Master for hanging here on a 
single wall this series of companion pictures affording to 
our minds a more just and adequate conception of the 
Kingdom he came to establish in the hearts, in the organ- 
ized relationships and in the institutions of men. The 
Kingdom of God includes that whole section and quality 
of life which owns and obeys the rule of the divine spirit. 
It is to be found in all those principles and aspirations 
which rule the hearts of individual men becoming deter- 
minative in their daily conduct. It is to be found in the 
prevalence and sovereignty of a certain spirit and method in 
those forms of social, political, industrial organization which 
bear directly upon the formation of character. It is to be 
found in the steady influence of those enduring institutions 
which serve to express and to develop the corporate life of 
society so that all the varying kingdoms of interest shall 
be in process of becoming kingdoms of the divine purpose 
as revealed in the Lord Christ. 

The soil and the seed are both to be regarded in antici- 
pating a harvest. The houses men live in, the shops they 
work in, the streets their children play in, the facilities for 
cleanliness, for privacy, for happiness, none of these can 
be left out of the account in making a forecast of human 
well-being. 

But the seed also has a way of asserting its mastery over 
surroundings apparently untoward. The tare achieves 
nothing good in the best of soil. The evil-minded man 
goes anywhere and everywhere finding that which ministers 
to the evil in his nature. The pure mind and unselfish 
heart sent by some noble impulse into the slums secure a 
reaction from those conditions which hastens rather than 



310 THE MASTER'S WAY 

retards the growth of moral excellence. Men instructed in 
the Kingdom of God do not speak slightingly of either 
the seed or the soil; they have regard both to favoring 
environment and to right purpose. 

The strongly organized and the subtly pervasive forms of 
effort and influence divide the honors. The Kingdom of 
Heaven does come by observation where wise means are 
skillfully adapted to secure right ends. We are urged to 
be as wise as the children of this world in shaping our 
activities in such fashion as to compass results. But the 
kingdom within us and around us comes also by those 
unobserved agencies which work under cover — as the 
leaven worked. They are never tabulated in any kind of 
report but they will come in for recognition in the great 
day when many an amazed man will be saying, " Lord, 
when? " W 7 e are not to ignore the mission of those myriad 
forms of spiritual contagion which work night and day 
while men sleep and rise, making ceaselessly for the great 
fulfillment. 

The direct search for the supreme values in life in one's 
own line of effort and on the other hand the inadvertent 
finding of that which shines with such radiance as to lay 
its requisition upon all our further endeavors — both these 
have place when we plan for the appeal of the truth and 
for the enlistment of others in the quest of life abounding 
and unending. 

The hour cometh and now is when all that any man is 
worth is the good he has done and the character he has won. 
The character and the service of the individual life are for 
each soul the treasure hid in the field and the pearl of 
great price. It matters not what Bradstreet says; it 
matters not what the headlines in the newspapers may 
announce; it matters not though the Chamber of Com- 
merce may adjourn for an hour and the flags fly at half- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 311 

mast on all the public buildings — all the man is worth is 
the good he has done and the character he has won. 
Therefore do good and give alms. Provide bags which wax 
not old. Lay up treasures which fail not. 

The treasure and the pearl both proclaim the fact then 
that every man's supreme concern is the quality of life 
which may be secured. What each man makes out of his 
field of effort is important. But what the field makes out of 
him, as he buys and sells, or heals or pleads, or teaches or 
preaches, is a thousand times more important. 

" Covet earnestly the best! " It lies below the surface, 
even as the hid treasure was deep buried underneath the 
smooth slope where the grass grew and the cattle grazed. 
If you would possess the values which are supreme you 
will need to touch life at its deeper levels, uncovering 
those profounder sources of motive, stimulus and spiritual 
supply. The hid treasure of the soul is only available for 
those who are willing to dig deep and invest their all. 

There is only one possession in this world where a man's 
tenure is absolutely sure — no man is ever compelled to 
part with himself. If he gives his best strength to the 
accumulation of an abundance of things, he may hear the 
summons at any moment, " This night thy soul shall be 
required of thee — then whose shall those things be?" 
Whose indeed! In that hour he has nothing to take with 
him but his own qualities of mind and heart, his own ac- 
cumulation of character and his own record of Christian 
service. And that fact becomes either his highest reward or 
his sorest penalty, for no man can be good company for 
himself permanently unless he is a Christian. He needs 
the peace and the promise of Christian faith. 

" Judas went out and it was night." From that hour of 
guilty treachery it was always night when Judas went 
out — no matter where he went — for Judas. It is gruesome 



312 THE MASTER'S WAY 

to have a traitor around — and in every room or group that 
Judas entered there was a traitor present. When he died 
he left his thirty pieces of silver and all that he had, but 
he took Judas, the traitor, with him. The tenure of things 
is uncertain but the tenure of self is sure. It is therefore 
the part of wisdom to invest all that one has in securing 
that selfhood here symbolized by the treasure and the 
pearl. 

11 Have ye understood all these things? " Jesus asked. 
11 They said to him, Yea, Lord." How he must have 
smiled, inwardly if not outwardly, at their simplicity! 
They had learned the alphabet and were beginning to 
pronounce words of one syllable in the language of the 
Kingdom. But the deeper meaning and the richer content 
of that life abundant and eternal to which he would intro- 
duce them lay ahead as an undiscovered country. They 
had need of further instruction in the methods of the 
Kingdom that as well-to-do householders they might bring 
forth from its treasury things new and old. 



LI I 

THE HEARER AND THE DOER 

Luke 6 : 39-49 

"And he spake a parable unto them" — in fact, four 
brief parables within the limits of this brief passage. The 
blind leading the blind — a lesson on leadership! The 
splinter and the beam — a lesson on self-examination! 
The good and the bad tree — a lesson on the organic rela- 
tion between the inner life and outward conduct! The wise 
and the foolish builders — a lesson on the necessity of 
founding the life on obedience to the divine will! 

" Can the blind lead the blind? " They can and they 
do. We see full-page, life-size illustrations of it every day 
in the week. And we also see in the "pit" — as the 
Revised Version more accurately has it, for Palestine 
abounded in wells without curbs, in unfenced quarries and 
in various kinds of "pits" — the outcome of the experi- 
ment. 

It will be a great gain when we recognize the fact that 
no man has a right to lead until he knows his way about. 
No man has a right to urge his opinions upon others until 
he has made an honest study of the subject. The blunder- 
ing work of amateurs and smatterers helps to fill many a 
"pit " with human wreckage. Men with heads on their 
shoulders are demanding the verdict of expert knowledge. 
The committing of valued interests to sound knowledge and 
trained efficiency would seem to be a commonplace of 
prudence. It is a question whether the hasty judgment or 
quick resentment of the crowd should be made a court of 

313 



314 THE MASTER'S WAY 

immediate and final appeal for carefully reasoned verdicts 
brought in by men to whom the adjudication of difficult 
questions is a life calling. The " blind " may feel abun- 
dantly able to "lead" and the "pit" may declare the re- 
sults of their self-confidence. 

The special reference of the Master was to moral blind- 
ness. He found patent and laughable evidence of this 
obtuseness in the moral immodesty of those who stood 
ever ready to indicate the splinterlike faults in their fellows 
while* great beams of moral deficiency marred their own 
natures. " How canst thou say, ' Brother, let me pull out 
the mote from thine eye ' while thou beholdest not the 
beam in thine own eye?' The "smug complacency" was 
so ludicrous as to elicit this extravagant picture of " splinter 
and beam " from the lips of Christ. 

The role of " the superior person " forever bent upon 
bringing home to others the sense of their moral lack is 
hard. His very absorption in the multitudinous faults 
which he detects in others robs him of the needed time and 
strength to make similar scrutiny of his own limitations. 
The two imperative needs in his case are these: self- 
examination — "Behold what is in thine own eye"; and 
self-reform — "Cast out the beam in thine own eye, then 
thou shalt see clearly." These wholesome admonitions 
follow naturally upon the preceding verses. Before we 
undertake to " judge " or " condemn " others we must 
strictly judge ourselves or we shall be found indeed " blind 
leaders of the blind." 

The Master then indicated the necessary and organic 
relation between the inner life principle and its outward 
manifestation in conduct. The good tree brings forth good 
fruit, the evil tree bears evil fruit — in both cases, like 
Luther, " It cannot otherwise." The dependence of whole- 
some moral influence upon a right life within is absolute. 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 315 

Spiritual efficacy is no trick to be learned by the clever; 
it is not a question of a more perfect technique. The 
futility of expecting figs from thorns or grapes from thistles 
is not more evident than the futility of hoping for spiritual 
usefulness from an unrenewed, disobedient life. 

" What you are talks so much louder than what you say 
that my mind is confused," was the bitter answer given 
by honest intelligence to officious insincerity. Heart and 
mouth must have a common life principle if anything of 
worth is to issue, for " out of the abundance of the heart 
the mouth speaketh." 

Then the folly of pious utterance unattended by the 
plain habit of moral obedience comes in for rebuke. " Why 
call ye me ' Lord, Lord,' and do not the things which I 
say? " Why indeed! What shall it profit though a man 
gracefully and habitually utters all the litanies of earth if 
these worshipful words are not accompanied by an un- 
wearying effort to bring the practice of his life into agree- 
ment with the uttered aspiration. 

Jesus likened the man of obedient habit to one who in 
building his house dug deep and laid the foundation on a 
rock. And when the hard tests came, the rain and the 
wind, the stream and the flood beating upon the house, it 
stood because it was founded upon a rock. 

" And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and 
doeth them not shall be likened unto a dizzy man " — 
to employ the quaint, suggestive translation given the word 
in Wyckliffe's Bible — "who built his house upon the 
sand." The light-headed, staggering uncertainty of the 
life grounded in disregard for the word of Christ could not 
be better indicated. When the hard tests come to such a 
life it falls for lack of adequate support. 

The Spreckels Building on Market Street, San Francisco, 
is eighteen stories high. It is a tall, slender, towerlike 



316 THE MASTER'S WAY 

structure, square in form and apparently without sufficient 
base for a building of such height. When the great earth- 
quake of 1906 occurred and the whole surface of the earth 
along the line of the " Portola Fault " was in a tremor, 
it was estimated by scientific men that the swaying of the 
tall Spreckels Building carried the center of gravity beyond 
the base line many times during those fearful forty-eight 
seconds. 

But when the building was erected the wise builder 
11 dug deep and laid the foundations " aright. The build- 
ing has a steel frame and the frame does not rest upon the 
loose sand which underlies so much of San Francisco — 
the architect pierced through the loose material at the 
surface and anchored the steel frame in great wells blasted 
from the solid rock and afterward filled in around the 
bases of the steel frame with cement. When the eighteenth 
of April came, testing every man's work of what sort it 
was, the huge weight of the swaying building was held in 
place because it was founded upon a rock. It had gripped 
that which was abiding. 

The hard tests come to every life. The elemental forces 
of human experience, the wind and the rain, the stream and 
the flood, threaten the life structure of each one of us. 
The various temptations, subtle and powerful, the heavy 
burdens of responsibility which cause men to stagger, the 
bitter disappointments which beat upon the dearest pur- 
poses we cherish, the shock of adversity or of bereave- 
ment which causes the very foundations of our hope to 
tremble, all these experiences come steadily to the children 
of men. And the tested lives stand or fall as they have or 
have not been grounded in obedience to principle, as they 
have or have not come to grip the fundamental realities. 

In telling fashion Jesus passes in review these incom- 
petent and untrustworthy guides. The would-be leaders 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 317 

blinded by their own conceit, like the Pharisees, the lead- 
ers blinded by their unbelief, like the Sadducees, the lead- 
ers blinded by beams of moral fault in their own lives, and 
the leaders blinded by their habit of disobedience are all 
indicated and the disciples are warned against the evil 
results which such incompetence entails. 

The imperative need of speedily and steadily translating 
" hearing " into " doing " can scarcely be overstated. 
11 After he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored 
to go." One man, the most conspicuous and forceful man 
of his generation in moral influence, saw a vision and im- 
mediately a group of devoted men set forth with him along 
the line of achievement. The eyes of insight saw certain 
ends as desirable. Obedient feet began at once to tread 
the path of fulfillment and obedient hands were busied 
with the task of realizing that splendid hope. 

" If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them." 
The highest happiness comes not by what we hear or see 
or feel — it comes by what we do. What shall it profit a 
man though he hear great music and read great books and 
have his soul stirred by the appeal of some prophet of the 
living God, unless as a result of it all he goes out and does 
something. If you hear and feel and see, happy are ye if 
ye do, and only then. 

" The criticism of the next generation upon this," some 
wise man has said, " will be, ' How plainly they saw their 
problems, how ineffective they were in solving them.' " 
The arraignment is too sweeping, yet in many quarters the 
eyes see and the ears hear but the feet and the hands are 
not ready to go in the way of achievement. 

Jacob Riis shows us " How the Other Half Lives," but 
thousands of the more fortunate decline the huge task of 
helping to change the hard lot of their unhappy fellows. 
Booker Washington in "Up from Slavery " shows us a 



318 THE MASTER'S WAY 

vision of a backward race ennobled by training, but thou- 
sands of white men forget to lend a hand. John Spargo 
utters " The Cry of the Children," for there are two mil- 
lions of them under sixteen years of age working at gainful 
occupations in our own land according to the government 
census, but the lack of resolute action to stop this physical, 
mental and moral depletion of the immature is disgraceful. 
Lincoln Steffens shows up " The Shame of the Cities " 
and it brings a blush to the face of many a patriot, but 
when the task of removing that shame begins to make de- 
mands upon the time and strength men are giving to their 
private business, there are many whose love for civic 
righteousness waxes cold. 

What are lessons and visions for but to be speedily 
translated into deeds! Hearing and seeing and feeling 
which find no expression in action become a kind of mental 
and spiritual dissipation no more honorable than physical 
dissipation through the use of stimulants or opiates. The 
great truth yields its value only as it finds utterance in 
terms of life. " Whoso looketh into the perfect law of 
liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful 
hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed 
in his deed." 



LIII 
THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM 

Mark 4 : 26-32 

The Kingdom of God grows steadily because it has be- 
hind it the push of universal and invincible forces. It is 
"as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should 
sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring 
and grow up, he knows not how." The whole process was 
clothed in mystery for the man who by his own act had 
seemed to set in motion these mighty energies. And the 
harvest came on apace with a kind of inevitableness be- 
cause of the movement of these unseen forces with which 
he had allied his effort. 

The naturalness of the religious life and the sure preval- 
ence of that life quality which is to be the ultimate answer 
to the prayer, " Thy Kingdom come," are here portrayed. 
"The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself" — she cannot 
otherwise. It is a case of mistaken emphasis when the 
strangeness of the religious life is urged. The idea of " a 
peculiar people " has been overworked and distorted — 
the Revised Version has it "a people for God's own pos- 
session." It is the un-Christian life which is odd and 
strange. When a man "comes to himself" he comes to 
the Father. The more normal the life becomes the more 
truly Christian it is. 

This parable beyond all others perhaps proclaims the 
fundamental adaptation of the truth of God to the spirit 
of man. The adaptation of seed to soil and of soil to seed 
was such that when once they were brought together, men 

319 



320 THE MASTER'S WAY 

might sleep and rise, leaving this conjunction of forces with- 
out further effort of their own, and inevitably there would 
come forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full- 
fledged grain. The thrust of an Infinite Purpose made sure 
the final result. 

''The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself" — automate 
was the word of the Master. He saw the progress of the 
Kingdom proceeding automatically when once the truth 
should have been genuinely lodged in the mind and heart 
of the race. While men slept and rose and slept again to 
ease them from their toil these unseen spiritual energies 
would be ceaselessly at work bringing nearer the harvest. 
The well-designed and benign acts of men would be taken 
up and utilized by the great moral order which enfolded 
them. The direct efforts of men become enlisted with a 
mighty system of energies which are the widely spreading 
branches of that true vine of divine life. 

What a reassuring thought to those who engage in spiri- 
tual effort and become disheartened oftentimes when they 
look for results! The utterance of some vital truth from 
the pulpit or in a classroom on Sunday seems to issue in 
no immediate visible result. But the new idea once im- 
planted, the new impulse once awakened, the new resolve 
quickened for the moment into action, is taken up and 
conserved by the same sort of invisible and invincible 
forces as those which met the seed as it fell into the soil. 
And then as the minister and the teacher sleep and rise 
quite unaware of what is in process beneath the surface 
where their eyes do not reach, the realm of human nature 
is bringing along results of itself. When our visible efforts 
have ceased and our spoken words have been hushed, un- 
seen energies are still at work in which we may safely 
confide. 

The self-activity of the soil typifies " that Power not our- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 321 

selves which makes for righteousness." It typifies also that 
resident hunger of the soul, and its perennial thirst for the 
living God — he has made us for himself, and our hearts 
are restless till they rest in him. In all our efforts we may 
depend upon these two allies, the underlying good will of 
the Infinite and the essential adaptation of the human 
heart to the message of the gospel. 

When some pious visitor at the White House in the 
darker days of the Civil War expressed to the President 
the hope that God was on their side, Lincoln re- 
plied gravely, " I am more concerned about our being on 
God's side." When men and women in their dominant 
purposes, in their prevailing moods and dispositions, in 
those aspirations which have the right of way, undertake to 
place themselves in line with the divine purpose, they may 
share in the serenity of the farmer who sleeps and rises in 
the sure certainty that having cast his seed into the soil, 
he has initiated a process which will work steadily and 
mightily in his interest. 

The growth of the Kingdom is an orderly procedure 
according to the teaching of this passage. It does not come 
mainly by cataclysms. It is an evolution rather than a 
revolution. The blade is put forth and then at a later 
stage the earing is seen and late in the season the full 
grain appears. The stirring programs put forward in the 
Millerite excitement in 1843 or by " Pastor Russell " in 
his pictures of the " Millennial Dawn " may appeal to the 
uninitiated. But " householders instructed in the Kingdom 
of God " who know the vital relation between " things 
new and old," are not misled. When men cry, " Lo, 
here," or, " Lo, there," their interest goes not forth. 
They have learned the method of the Master which is the 
method of the ages. 

We do not add cubits to our stature by being anxious 



322 THE MASTER'S WAY 

and overwrought for an hour or two. We do not cause 
the seed to grow by sitting up night and day to give it the 
added stimulus of feverish effort. The child living out the 
law of his own being, fulfilling not fretfully but trustfully 
the purpose of his existence, does add cubits to his stature. 
And men sleeping and rising in normal fashion await the 
action of those orderly forces of earth and sky which work 
their beneficent will upon the seed cast into the ground. 
The Kingdom comes mainly not by swift and dramatic 
strokes which lend themselves so readily to observation — 
it comes by those patient, agelong processes which believ- 
ing men and women set in motion as they move toward the 
vast fulfillment of their highest hopes. 

The initial impulse may be ever so slight if only it be 
vital. Bulk does not always count for efficiency. The 
grain of mustard seed was less than all seeds with which 
the hearers of the Master were familiar but full grown it 
became a tree shooting forth great branches in which the 
fowls of the air might lodge. The word of truth, the act 
of friendliness, the quiet maintenance of a certain attitude 
or the unselfish deed of devotion, may seem to be the 
least of all the influences which bid for the response of 
some life. The quiet action may not bulk large upon the 
popular horizon. But when it is sown by the hand of 
faith, it may serve to usher in a development possessed of 
large and lasting significance. 

Some bit of consecrated effort or material the great order 
of unseen forces does seem to require. Give it a grain of 
mustard seed and it will show us a tree. Give it water- 
pots rilled with water to the brim and the wedding will be 
furnished with wine. Give it that small measure of obe- 
dient trust which feels its way along the street that it may 
wash in the pool of Siloam and the blind eyes will be made 
to see. Give it the dust of the ground, whatever that may 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 323 

mean, and the breath of a mighty life will be breathed 
into it until there issues forth a living soul destined to 
wear the likeness and image of the Most High. The basis 
of consecrated resource may be slender but, supplemented 
by the gracious power which takes it up as the soil took 
up the mustard seed, the outcome may be glorious beyond 
estimate. 

One of the most effective men in any of the teams en- 
gaged in the " Men and Religion Forward Movement " a few 
years ago related this occurrence in his early life. He was 
employed as office boy in a large concern. The president 
of the corporation was commonly referred to by the clerks 
as " Old Money Bags," as a " Pirate " or a " Shark." 
The boy had never seen him. 

One morning this office boy was sent into the president's 
private room to kindle a fire. While he was laying the 
sticks he heard a step behind him and before he had time 
to look around a cheery voice came: " Good morning! 
That fire will feel good today. It is chilly! Thank you 
very much." It was only a mustard seed of kindly interest 
in the least important of thousands of employes, but it 
was the inception of a new feeling and attitude. The pres- 
ent proclamation of a social gospel which has to do with 
the coming of a Kingdom which shall be an everlasting 
Kingdom might trace its origins back to that simple word 
of human interest. When the initial impulse is grown, no 
man can foretell the result! The impatient people who 
would leap at once to the harvest without passing in regu- 
lar fashion through the preliminary stages need to read 
this parable once more. 

There is also included in this passage the parable of the 
leaven. The new life principle once introduced into the 
measures of meal worked its will upon its neighboring 
particles. It imparted the same leavening potency to each 



324 THE MASTER'S WAY 

adjoining bit of meal so that it in turn worked upon its 
fellow. And this communication of a new quality was 
carried forward until the whole was leavened. The leaven 
stands for that mysterious energy which lifts — the original 
meaning was " to raise." It lifts the materials of life to 
a higher level. 

How the two parables of the mustard seed and the leaven 
supplement each other! In the first the tiny seed growing 
into a splendid plant with roots, trunk, branches and 
leaves, affording a resting place for the birds, brings out the 
progress achieved by the visible and organized efforts of 
men for the advancement of the Kingdom. It was a 
work seen and tangible where part related itself to part 
before the eyes of the many, making plain the develop- 
ment from a single seed to this useful and promising 
growth. 

Then lest men might feel that nothing was being ac- 
complished where no such visible organized results were in 
evidence, Jesus hung before them the picture of the leaven. 
The yeast hidden by the deft hand of a woman in three 
measures of meal did its work out of sight in an unor- 
ganized way. It illustrated the permeative power of the 
truth, the results achieved by subtle communication where 
one soul influences another it scarce knows how. 



LIV 
THE SIGN AND THE LEAVEN 
Mark 8 : 11-26 

The Master had crossed the frontier into the borders of 
Tyre and Sidon. He had also been at work in Decapolis. 
Now when he returned to his own country " the Pharisees 
came forth and began to question him, seeking of him a 
sign from heaven." It was their prevailing mood. They 
were the carping, hindering, nagging opponents of the will 
of God. What a role for the professed religious leaders of 
the day to play! What a contrast between the Gentile 
woman's eager faith and the sour unbelief of these " Mas- 
ters in Israel." 

They demanded " a sign from heaven." In their cavils 
they attributed the work of Christ in casting out devils 
to the Prince of devils — they believed that supernatural 
powers of an evil sort might be at work in the affairs of 
this world. They therefore demanded this " sign from 
heaven " which should conform to their notions of an unim- 
peachable testimony to the divine character of Christ's 
work. 

This they said " testing him " — the translation of this 
word in so many passages as " tempt " is confusing. It 
would clear up for many minds the meaning of that peti- 
tion in the Lord's Prayer, " Lead us not into tempta- 
tion," if the words were understood to mean, " Bring us not 
into the place of severe testing." It is the voicing of spiri- 
tual modesty uncertain of its own strength and shrinking 
from the strain which might prove its undoing. The 

325 



326 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Pharisees demanded this " sign from heaven " that they 
might subject his claims to a rigid test of their own 
devising. 

The Master " sighed deeply in his spirit." That genera- 
tion had already a gigantic " sign from heaven " in the 
fact of the Incarnation. His own matchless life and teach- 
ing, his power of moral renewal in the lives of those who 
companied with him, his message awakening that response 
in the moral need of the world which became his highest 
credential — all these were "signs from heaven." 

11 There shall no sign be given to this generation " — 
in the parallel passages in Matthew and in Luke these 
words are added, " but the sign of the prophet Jonah." 
In this case the sign was internal and spiritual rather 
than some external wonder. " The men of Nineveh re- 
pented at the preaching of Jonah" — they made the re- 
sponse which the Pharisees of Christ's time were failing to 
make though a greater than Jonah voiced the appeal. 

Jesus would turn their minds from the external to the 
internal. They were looking for the " evidences of Chris- 
tianity " in the wrong quarter. When they cried, " Give 
us your proofs," " Shew us a sign," their minds were upon 
that which is altogether secondary. The Master utilized 
miracles to gain attention, for no teacher can teach unless 
he has attention. But he speedily sought to lift the inter- 
est of his hearers from the outward to the inward mani- 
festations of the divine energy. "This is an evil genera- 
tion — they seek a sign." 

We have made a distinct gain in this matter in the last 
fifty years. The evidential value of miracles once urged 
with showy confidence has been remanded to an entirely 
subordinate place. The evidences of Christianity today 
which carry most weight with judge and jury are to be 
found in the higher standard of values consequent upon the 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 327 

diffusion of the Christian gospel, in the new regard for the 
weak and helpless, in the more complete sense of responsi- 
bility for the general well-being, in the steadier and more 
thoroughgoing attitude of opposition to all forms of evil, 
in the larger vision and more profound confidence touching 
the coming of that condition of life worthy to be designated 
as " the Kingdom of God." These are indeed " signs from 
heaven " testifying to the validity of the Christian message 
in terms of abiding worth. 

Jesus left the Pharisees and took a boat for the other 
side of the lake. The disciples accompanied him, but they 
forgot to take bread with them. On the way across Jesus 
said, " Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the 
leaven of Herod." The word " leaven " was used among 
the Hebrews to designate any pervasive influence, good or 
bad, but more commonly bad because of the ceremonial 
prejudice against leaven induced by the ceremonial law. 
" The leaven of the Pharisee " was that spirit of formalism, 
pride, carping, hypocrisy which had corrupted the religious 
life of the nation. " The leaven of Herod " was worldli- 
ness. The Herods were professed Jews who reacting from 
the strictness of the Pharisees into license were importing 
into Judaism the evils of heathenism. 

There are lighthearted and lightheaded worldlings in all 
our communities who, priding themselves on their detesta- 
tion of anything Puritanical and pluming themselves on 
what they regard as their " breadth of view," suffer the 
loss of all moral passion and spiritual fiber by the inroads 
of " the leaven of Herod." And standing over against 
them, in a self-righteous attitude of protest it may be, there 
are those who by stiff pride in their rigid respectability 
and in their measured observance of religious rites become 
morally ineffective through " the leaven of the Pharisees." 

The poor disciples, almost as dull as the sign-seekers, 



328 THE MASTER'S WAY 

11 reasoned " (literally " dialogued," dielogizonto) " among 
themselves, saying, It is because we have brought no 
bread." Then it became necessary for the Master to open 
the eyes of their understanding. " Having eyes, see ye 
not? Having ears, hear ye not? " And recalling to their 
minds the feeding of the five thousand, he indicated that 
it was easier for him to provide bread for a hungry multi- 
tude than to develop spiritual insight in his own disciples. 
The external " signs and wonders " were in his evaluation 
the easier and the lower form of manifestation of his 
power. Then he explained to his fumbling followers that 
it was against the teaching, the spirit, the influence of the 
Pharisees and of the Herodians that he was warning them. 

When they came to Bethsaida Jesus healed a blind man. 
It was an unusual cure in the method pursued. The Mas- 
ter utilized certain physical agencies — "he put spittle 
on the eyes of the blind man." The cure was gradual — 
when the man was asked if he saw anything during the 
process of recovery, he replied, " I see men as trees, 
walking." He could discern moving objects without dis- 
tinguishing them. Then Jesus treated him again and he 
saw clearly. 

The use of the spittle, and the laying of his hands upon 
the sightless eyes (like his looking up to heaven and his 
word " Ephphatha " in the healing of the deaf man in 
Decapolis) were designed to awaken and encourage faith. 
He used the language of signs in making his " sugges- 
tions," as modern psychotherapy would say, in order to 
induce a mental and spiritual condition favorable to a cure. 
Here, as his custom was, he sought to enlist the personal 
trust and effort of the life he would serve. 

It was an essential part of his mission. He came to open 
the eyes of the blind not through the fiat of his own benefi- 
cent, redemptive will alone but by securing the co-operation 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 329 

of all the inner powers of the needy life. He comes to 
open the eyes of many who in their moral blindness 
cherish the notion that they see perfectly. But their range of 
vision is so narrowed and hedged by their own lack of the 
higher powers of perception that the world they inhabit is 
one of thick darkness. 

It is the mind that sees even more than the eyes. I 
take my dog with me into the Dresden Gallery. He sees all 
that I see, physically speaking. He probably sees a great 
deal more, for his eyesight is better than mine — he has 
never had to succumb to the indignity of glasses. But 
when we come out after visiting every room, the Sistine 
Madonna is not in the dog's world. It is in my world. I 
see it, I feel it, I am inspired by it as I sit here and write. 
It has been in my world ever since I saw it for the first 
time twenty odd years ago. But if the dog were to live 
out his days in the Dresden Gallery the Sistine Madonna 
would never enter his range of vision. 

This blind man at one stage of his recovery saw men as 
trees walking — he had a blurred, indistinct vision of some- 
thing but could not distinguish the material from the 
human. How many men and women about us suffer the 
same defect! As Dean Hodges cleverly puts it: " A large 
part of the battle of life has been fought and won when 
one has learned the difference between a man and a tree. 
For that is the difference between the great and the small, 
between mind and matter, between the eternal and the 
transitory, between earth and heaven. Success begins with 
a recognition of the values of things." 

It is one of the great valid, abiding signs of the coming 
of the divine life into the world that men and communities 
which formerly walked in darkness have seen a great light. 
They possessed only a hazy, uncertain vision of^ reality 
from which the supreme and lasting verities were excluded 



330 THE MASTER'S WAY 

by their own lack of perceptive power. But now, through 
the regeneration of their individual hearts, by the clarify- 
ing and ennobling of their social ideals, and by the quicken- 
ing stimulus afforded by contact with the Spirit, they see 
heaven and they see it open. They see a whole upper 
realm of values, forces and activities clear and plain. They 
see the messengers of the Most High coming and going 
upon a ceaseless and beneficent ministry. Jesus is ' the 
light of the world " and they who follow him shall lack 
neither eyes nor the medium where eyes are of avail — 
11 they shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light 
of life." 



LV 
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST 

Matt. 18 : 1-14 

" The nineteenth century will shine in history as a 
century of discoveries. An English scientist has given us a 
list of them, but he has omitted the greatest of them all, 
the discovery of the child. Accurately speaking, we should 
say the ' rediscovery of the child,' for the child was first 
discovered eighteen hundred years ago by the Carpenter of 
Nazareth. In the first century of our era Jesus took a 
child and set him in the midst and he has done it again 
in the century just closed. He has set him in the midst of 
the artists and in increased numbers they have been paint- 
ing pictures of children. He has set him in the midst of 
the poets and they have set the movements of the child's 
life to music. He has set him in the midst of the psychol- 
ogists and they are studying him furiously. He has set 
him in the midst of the Church and the greatest work the 
Church has done in a century has been done among the 
young." 

In these splendid words one of the foremost preachers 
in America has indicated the center of interest and the line 
of advance for spiritual effort as his Master indicated it 
by the significant action narrated in this passage. He took 
a child for a text and preached a sermon on greatness. 
He lifted a child in his arms as a living, moving picture of 
the spirit in which every man must approach the Eternal. 
" Except ye become as little children " — the filial attitude 
alone is acceptable when men draw near to him who is 

331 



332 THE MASTER'S WAY 

most fitly designated as " The Father." He held aloft 
a child and asserted that the interests of that little life 
were so sacred that in the realm of moral values the unseen 
forces which have to do with the child's well-being stand in 
the very forefront of the divine interest — " In heaven 
their angels do always behold the face of my Father." 

In all this he exalted the qualities of modesty, simplicity, 
teachableness in a fashion sorely needed by this strenuous, 
self-assertive, self-confident age of ours. If we would know 
the joys and wield the subtler powers which belong to the 
Kingdom of God on earth, we shall need to reverse many 
of our methods. We must go to school to the child. A 
man can be born anew when he is old. It is one of the 
glories of the gospel that a man become hard, sordid, sus- 
picious of all generous impulse, may find his inner life 
become again as the soul of a child. 

We are giving some of our ripest wisdom and most 
generous effort in these days to the high task of Christian 
nurture. The Bible school is no more an unimportant ad- 
junct of the church, subordinate in interest and value to 
the preaching service for adults — the truer insight into the 
value of religious education has set it in the very forefront 
of our attention. It is not the will of the Father that one 
of these little ones should be hindered or hurt in his spiri- 
tual unfolding by incompetent instruction or by blundering 
attempts to mould his inner life. Woe betide the church 
which allows the opening mind and the responsive heart to 
stumble! 

The very appointments of the churches are being made 
with thoughtful regard for the child in the midst. There 
are two eyes and two ears in a boy's head, but the eyes vote 
more stock twice over when a directors' meeting is held 
than do the ears. Boys are looking all the time when they 
are awake — they only listen on occasion. The stained 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 333 

glass windows rich in religious suggestiveness, like the 
elaborate stone carving on the cathedrals at Chartres 
and Amiens, were originally meant to be the Bibles of the 
illiterate. They are Bibles still for children who study the 
mysterious figures instead of listening to the sermon. 

And those windows had best be given not solely to 
representations of the passive, suffering Christ so dear to 
the hearts of Christians past middle life. Let there be also 
an effective portrayal of those scenes in his life which ap- 
peal to the active, resolute, heroic element in the life of the 
boy. 

The Father's house should be a house of prayer and of 
wholesome meditation for all nations and all ages, for all 
moods and all temperaments. If the great truths of the 
Bible are there in finely colored glass it may be that when 
the boy's interest in the sermon flags between " thirdly " 
and " fourthly," his eyes will behold the vision of glorious 
manhood held against the sun; and beholding it with open 
face and mind intent he may be changed into the same 
image. 

The boy's interest is also developed by an active partici- 
pation in the service, the hymns, the responses, the prayers. 
Boys are listless when they might be ready for active 
participation in the worship of the hour if fewer mature 
men showed themselves silent partners in the august busi- 
ness of worship. In that pew where the father joins 
heartily in the singing and the responses the boy is likely to 
do the same. But the man whose worshipful interest is 
entirely exhausted in holding up one side of the hymn-book 
while his wife reads the responses and sings God's praise in 
her gentler soprano is teaching every boy who sees him that 
active participation in the worship of God's house is not 
for the masculine nature. 

The Master uttered a terrible word of warning to those 



334 THE MASTER'S WAY 

who cause the immature life to stumble. "It were better 
for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and 
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto 
the world because of offenses. It must needs be that of- 
lenses come " — with the undeveloped morals of the race it 
is inevitable — ° but woe to that man by whom the offense 
cometh." 

How far have we laid that stern counsel to heart! What 
do the cotton mills in the South employing thousands of 
little children under fourteen years of age say? What do 
the glass factory and the coal breaker in Pennsylvania and 
the cigar factories in West Virginia where boys of twelve 
and fourteen are working to their moral and physical detri- 
ment say? What does any shop or factory which steps in 
to rob the schoolroom and the playground by its economic 
greed say? 

We are moving. Public sentiment has been aroused by 
books and magazine articles. Women's Clubs and labor 
unions have promoted a wholesome agitation. The cry 
of the working child has pierced the thick veil of ignorance 
and indifference which once made his position hopeless. 
The cry of the child, shrill, feeble, plaintive because he is 
being worked too soon or too hard, is being re-enforced 
by the mature voice of Christian sentiment. 

Child labor is thrice cursed! It curses the child who 
performs it. It curses the adult men and women who are 
out of work, having been thrust aside to make room for 
cheap, immature labor. It curses the employer who dead- 
ens his own conscience in order to profit by the exploita- 
tion of the helpless. 

There are certain years sacred to the formation of cell 
and tissue necessary to the growth of body and mind if 
these are to become tall and broad, sound and wise. And 
much of this process must be carried on in the open air 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 335 

where children love to play. Where a child of twelve is 
working in a cotton mill breathing cotton waste and inhal- 
ing the smell of machine oil ten hours a day, or inhaling 
tobacco dust in a cigar factory or coal dust on the breaker, 
this normal, physical and mental unfolding does not take 
place. 

And the moral effects of child labor are yet more serious. 
The boy doomed to monotonous work in the mill when he 
should be at school or at play released at night from the 
grind of toil most readily reacts into those forms of vicious 
indulgence which are damning. The employment of boys 
in occupations which pave the way for moral corruption, 
in hotels where dissolute men and women congregate, in 
theaters where problem plays and indecent exhibitions are 
given, in messenger service where young lads are sent 
ofttimes to the red light district, is altogether vicious. The 
Federal Committee on Child Labor brought out the fact 
that messenger boys of twelve and fourteen are more than 
ready to be sent to the disreputable districts both to satisfy 
their growing curiosity touching matters of sex and be- 
cause of the generous tips and the presents of fruit and 
candy lavished upon them by dissolute women. 

When children are gathered out of the country into the 
city to work in mills and factories it is urged in defense of 
the practice that they were accustomed to work on the 
farms whence they came. But working out of doors on a 
farm, with the intermissions of rainy days and leisure sea- 
sons, by the side and under the eye of a father, is a very 
different thing from working for a boss in the stolid, un- 
compromising labor of a mill. " Letting your own child 
work for you is very different from allowing another man 
to work your child." 

The immature cash girls in many of our department 
stores make a pathetic appeal. A divine law is violated 



336 THE MASTER'S WAY 

when young girls of twelve and fourteen and sixteen are 
compelled to stand all day long, week in and week out, 
month in and month out. A divine law is violated which 
no chamber of commerce or state legislature enacted and 
which no human organization can ever repeal. The future 
vigor and character of a large section of the human race is 
there being determined and society cannot afford to look 
with indifference upon a process which poisons the stream 
of life at its source. 

Jesus set the child in the midst and the treatment of the 
child has become an index of the civilization of any land. 
Let our Christian civilization take the child and set him 
in the forefront of its interest, safeguarding his physi- 
cal, mental and moral unfolding by a wise and generous 
nurture. 



LVI 
THE GOOD SAMARITAN 

Luke 10 : 25-37 

" What shall I do to inherit eternal life? " the lawyer 
asked. Jesus invited him to state his own view of the 
matter — " How readest thou? " The lawyer glibly recited 
the two commands about loving God and loving one's 
neighbor. Jesus assured him that he had " answered right" 
— if he would do this he would live. 

But wishing to justify himself in what his conscience told 
him had been a selfish life, he called for a definition of the 
term, " Who is my neighbor? " And the first words in 
that great answer as contained in this splendid parable 
were these — "a certain man " — 

The teaching of Christ was always concrete. He never 
used great swelling terms such as " philanthropic interest " 
or " altruistic effort," as the manner of some is who may 
not have learned to be neighborly with the " certain men " 
whose lives they touch. There is no " humanity " to be 
loved and served — only certain men. There is no im- 
personal or abstract neighbor to be loved — the only reality 
in the case is "a certain man." The picture of neighbor- 
liness drawn here serves to bring the second great com- 
mandment down out of the clouds and back out of the fog 
of vague generalities, making it effective by directing it 
toward " certain men." 

"Who is my neighbor?" A certain man; a man near 
you; a man who needs you; a man whom you have it in 
your power to help! The readiness to meet the needs of 

337 



338 THE MASTER'S WAY 

each situation as it arises becomes the measure of each 
man's love. 

The " certain man " varies from hour to hour. Life is 
made up of new occasions and fresh opportunities. The 
Samaritan riding along toward Jericho did not know any- 
thing about the wounded traveler, but a bend in the road 
brought him face to face with a fresh call for service. 
Here was a new neighbor whom he was called upon to 
love! The responsibilities which attach to the neighborly 
spirit cannot be laid down in advance by hard and fast 
lines — they are constantly shifting. 

There were two men on that Jericho Road, the priest 
and the Levite, who belonged to that innumerable com- 
pany who "look on." The priest was brutally cold — 
he passed by with a hurried glance. But the Levite came 
and " looked at " the suffering man, inquired his name 
perhaps, asked how many robbers there were and how 
much of his money they took. Then having gotten all the 
particulars and having expressed his great regret that such 
things were permitted in this wicked world, he too passed 
by on the other side. 

The men who idly look on may oftentimes make a fair 
show in the flesh. They express themselves on occasion 
in such a way as to indicate that they are men of excellent 
sentiments and of fine feeling. They meet and organize, 
adopting constitutions and by-laws and appointing exten- 
sive committees. They hear addresses and discuss papers 
and eat big dinners in the cause of human betterment. 
They are eager to vote for ringing resolutions on the sub- 
ject both hands up. And then after going through all the 
motions and indulging in a lot of fruitless talk, they pass 
by, having accomplished nothing. 

The idle exercise of pity quickly shades off into unwhole- 
some self-indulgence. The professional funeral goers, the 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 339 

" slumming parties " who go, not to collect data for useful 
effort, but to gratify their curiosity, the first cabin pas- 
sengers by sea or by land who go down into the steerage 
that they may give their sympathies an airing, the morbid 
natures delighting in problem plays and shady novels 
which give them the excitement of an excursion into the 
realm of vice without the fear of open disgrace, all these 
Levites who come close to misery, study it, gaze upon it, 
photograph it with their kodaks and then pass by with no 
effort at practical relief, are held up to scorn in that telling 
phrase of the Master — "Looked on him and passed by." 

There is an idle, speculative, on-looking interest in politics 
also which enrolls its quota of Levites. These intense lov- 
ers of pure municipal government are willing to read the 
Nation regularly; they applaud mightily when some pun- 
gent orator scores the bosses. They hold up their hands in 
pious horror over the doings of Tammany. They beat upon 
their breasts and rend their garments at the very mention 
of certain iniquities down at the City Hall, or up at the 
State House. 

Yet somehow they lack stomach and zeal to get down 
from their high horses of condemnation in order to do the 
bloody, dusty work of getting the robbed and wounded 
city government upon its feet. They are unwilling to 
grapple at arm's length with primaries, caucuses and ward 
organization in the interest of clean politics. They come 
over and look upon the distressing situation and then 
with the detached Levite pass by on the other side. 

When the Samaritan appeared on the scene he struck 
another note. Heretic though he was, he felt an instant 
compassion for that helpless man. He got off and went to 
him. He bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine — 
a little oil to make the bandages soft, and a little wine 
down the man's throat perhaps to revive him, for he was 



340 THE MASTER'S WAY 

11 half dead." He finally got the man up " and set him on 
his own beast " and took him along to an inn. He was 
ready to walk that a needier man might ride. 

He unconsciously, as Dr. Peabody has pointed out, ful- 
filled the various demands in the program of modern 
scientific relief work. He felt at the start that humane 
sympathy which is the driving force of all charitable effort. 
He brought temporary relief to one who would have died 
without it. He then wisely removed the sufferer to restora- 
tive conditions. He furthermore provided for continuity 
of effort — "Take care of him," he said to the innkeeper, 
" and I will repay thee," giving his money, not to " the 
case," but to the institution. 

Here is a full-page, life-size picture of what Christian 
service means! It is personal; it is self-sacrificing; it is 
ready to get off that a needier man may ride; it will suffer 
delay and inconvenience to accomplish its end; it will 
take hold of men who are bloody and dusty, becoming 
bloody and dusty itself in order to help them. 

Most of us are mounted. We may not be riding in a 
coach and six, but each one has at least what the Samari- 
tan had, a small Syrian donkey under him. We have some 
money, more than enough to suffice for actual needs. We 
have homes, not palaces perhaps, but places of peace and 
comfort — and it is a great help to a man in making the 
journey of life to be mounted on a good home. We have 
intelligence — not as much as we wish, but enough to be of 
great service. We have some measure of goodness — noth- 
ing prancing or showy, but like the Samaritan's donkey, 
plain, quiet, useful, every-day goodness. 

We ride along on these advantages of ours and see men 
by the roadside robbed, wounded and left helpless. They 
have been injured in mind, body and estate. There they 
are, scattered along the side of the road! They will not 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 341 

be able to complete their journey without some friendly 
lift. And the chance of inheriting eternal life, according 
to this teaching, turns upon each man's willingness to get 
down and set some needy life upon his own beast, thus 
enabling him to live. 

It is neither difficult nor noble for a healthy, well-born, 
intelligent man to ride his own donkey from Jericho up to 
the New Jerusalem, robbing no one, wounding no one, 
simply riding and letting ride. But this is not the way to 
inherit eternal life. The man who rides up to the gate of 
heaven comfortably mounted on his own advantages, 
bought and paid for though they may have been, without 
having used them along the way to aid other less fortunate 
men in reaching the gate of heaven, may find the gate shut. 
The very essence of Christianity is the willingness to get 
down from off some advantage which rightfully belongs to 
us in order to set some needy man upon it. 

" Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus." 
He was in the form of God and counted it not a prize to 
be on an equality with God. But he made himself of no 
reputation. He took upon himself the form of a servant. 
He dismounted and became obedient to the demands of a 
most exacting service, even the death of the cross. Where- 
fore God and men alike have highly exalted him until his 
name is above every name! 

How ugly is the sight of the man who thinks that the 
chief end of man is to save his own soul and enjoy it for- 
ever! He picks out some statement of theological belief, 
saddles and bridles it with certain emotional experiences 
through which he has confidently passed; he then mounts 
it and rides serenely toward what he believes to be the 
New Jerusalem. He feels sorry for the moral failures on 
the roadside, helpless and half-dead in their sinful unbelief. 
He may offer a prayer for them or perhaps hand each one 



342 THE MASTER'S WAY 

a tract as he passes, but he rides on secure and happy in 
his own spiritual advantages. That man's religion is vain, 
and the place where he is liable to bring up is not called 
11 The New Jerusalem." 

This passage indicates the power of that plain kindness 
which has upon it no fringe or border of direct religious ex- 
hortation. The parable has seemed defective to certain 
high and dry minds in that this lawyer inquiring the way 
of eternal life is simply shown the picture of the kindly 
Samaritan and told to "go and do likewise." It seems 
perilous to leave the account without a single note of warning 
touching his Samaritan heresies. 

But that is the way Jesus left it — he had a wonderful 
faith in the transcendent power of self-sacrifice. He exalted 
the significance of that kindness which is personal, heart- 
felt, loving. The most sanguine words Jesus ever uttered 
touching the prospects of his Kingdom were these: "And 
I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto 
me. This he said signifying what death he should die." 
It was the sober estimate of the Son of God upon the 
power of self-sacrificing love. 



LVII 

THE PERSISTENT PRAYER 

Luke 11 : 1-13 

"As he was praying in a certain place one of his disciples 
said, Lord, teach us to pray." They had never heard it in 
that fashion. He prayed as never man prayed. It is 
significant that we have no record of their asking, " Lord, 
teach us to preach," or, " Teach us to heal," though 
preaching and healing both lay within their prescribed 
duties. They went back of these outward expressions of 
spiritual life to the source of life itself. " Teach us to 
pray! " 

"When ye pray say, Our" — the first word in the peti- 
tion must be an unselfish expression of sympathy with the 
needs of others. The second word in the petition would 
bring that sympathy up to the source of help — "Our 
Father." 

How much it means that this model prayer does not 
open with the word " I " or " My." Self-interest is not 
thrust into the foreground. The personal claims are merged 
in that larger request which is voiced in the word " Our." 

When Henry Ward Beecher lectured at Yale he told the 
boys that it was his custom while the choir was singing 
just before the prayer in Plymouth Church to allow his 
eyes to range freely over the congregation. Here was a 
family where sorrow had pulled down every shade in the 
house, shutting out all sunshine! Here was a man carrying 
a heavy load which made him stagger! Here was a brave 
woman wearing a smile on her face, for the sake of those 

343 



344 THE MASTER'S WAY 

other lives, when her heart was like lead! Here was a 
young fellow fighting all the wild beasts Paul saw at 
Ephesus in the temptations he had to meet! Here were 
people snug, prosperous, contented, in peril of damnation 
through " fatty degeneration of the soul." Here was a 
congregation massing up all the needs in the moral calendar! 
Just to look at them with that expectancy in their faces 
and the unspoken needs hidden away in their hearts 
brought the soul of the preacher into a sympathetic mood. 
When he stood up to pray it was easy for him to say, 
11 Our." 

When ye pray, look not every man on his own things, 
but every man also on the things of others. When you 
enter your closet and shut the door, you are not to shut 
out your neighbor's needs — you cannot pray aright if 
you do. The fervent effectual prayer of "a Tightened 
man " which availeth much springs ever from a heart 
possessed by sympathy. 

Dr. Jowett once said that " our spiritual bread would 
taste sweeter if we invited more guests to the table we 
seek to spread through our devotions." It has an enliven- 
ing effect upon the home table to see new faces there oc- 
casionally and to know that others are sharing in the joys 
of the family circle. Be hospitable if you would see your 
spiritual table spread profusely by the hands which blessed 
the loaves and broke them. Invite into your personal 
devotions those lives which are faltering in their struggle — 
put your faith and hope under them that they may not 
fail. It will keep your petitions from becoming stale and 
monotonous if you constantly introduce new faces, new 
interests, new fields of activity to your prayerful heart. 

When you begin your prayer, say " Our Father " — 
for prayer is the act of a child entering into companion- 
ship with his father. How natural and rational it is 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 345 

therefore. The boy who never speaks to his father is 
both wicked and morbid. We make our prayerful requests 
with filial freedom and confidence, but they must proceed 
from filial hearts. We must stand before God in reverent, 
obedient trust in order to utter even the first two words 
of that familiar prayer. We must have found our places 
in his house, at his table, in his service, as obedient chil- 
dren, before the total nature can look up and say, " Our 
Father." 

The Lord's Prayer contains but one petition for material 
blessing and that modestly limits itself to asking for one 
day's bread for the immediate need. The other five peti- 
tions are for the hallowing of the divine in all our thoughts 
and all our attitudes; for the coming of that rule of the 
divine spirit which shall usher in God's Kingdom; for the 
doing of his will on earth as it is done in heaven; for 
forgiveness to be granted to those souls which in their 
turn show themselves forgiving; and for such guidance 
and help as will issue in deliverance from evil. This fur- 
nishes the " norm " of appropriate petition. The model 
prayer moves mainly in the realm of spiritual values and 
all prayer offered after the method and in the spirit of 
Christ will place its emphasis after this manner. 

We have Scriptural warrant for praying in regard to 
interests other than those directly spiritual, but it should 
be done always with an eye to the bearing of those benefits 
on the coming of his Kingdom. The material advantages 
sought for stand subordinate to the spiritual benefits which 
are the supreme ends to be gained. Pray for health, if 
you will, for intelligence, for opportunities, for the success 
of all legitimate plans, that in and through these you may 
the more perfectly glorify God as a useful servant of his 
holy will. Let the farmer pray for rain if he will to save 
his crops. However much or little his petitions may affect 



346 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the weather — this lies beyond our ken — he may be sure 
that his prayer will deepen a spiritual relation of more 
value than many crops. He will by his devotions strengthen 
that relationship which will yield thirty, sixty, perchance 
a hundredfold in terms of a priceless harvest. 

Jesus related this parable to indicate what perseverance 
would accomplish in the face of unfavorable conditions. 
A selfish, grumpy man was in bed at midnight. His 
neighbor came to the door to ask for a loaf of bread to set 
before a hungry guest who unexpectedly had fallen upon 
an empty larder. The sour, crabbed fellow did not be- 
grudge him the bread — when once he was up he gave him 
as much as was wanted — but he disliked the trouble of 
getting out of bed; he was afraid of waking the baby, for 
his "children were with him in bed"; he shunned the 
discomfort of coming to the door in the darkness and cold 
of the night. 

But because that neighbor persisted in knocking until 
the selfish man could not sleep, he rose and gave him what 
he wanted. The Master was not undertaking to represent 
God by this selfish, sour-hearted churl. He was indicating 
what persistence and perseverance would accomplish even 
in the face of adverse conditions. 

In the parable the obstacles to be overcome were within, 
lodged in the heart of that unobliging man. In the case 
of prayer to God the obstacles are on the other side of the 
closed door — they are in us. The obstacles are to be 
found in our own selfishness, in our distrust, in our sins, 
which hinder us when we attempt to offer that fervent, 
effectual, availing prayer. 

But here as there perseverance triumphs over obstacles. 
If a man will ask and keep on asking; if he will seek and 
keep on seeking; if he will knock at that closed door and 
keep on knocking, the very persistence of his spiritual 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 347 

appeal will bring that quality of life where he will " re- 
ceive " and " find " and see the closed door " opened." 

The argument of Jesus in this parable was to this effect: 
If God were no better than this sour and selfish man who 
was unwilling to disturb himself in order to do a favor for 
a neighbor in an emergency, it would still be worth our 
while to ask him for what we need — persistent asking over- 
comes obstacles. How much more when the One we ask 
is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 

The warrant for asking and the assurance of success are 
to be found in the unstudied and abiding instincts of 
earthly parents. " If a son ask bread of any of you that is 
a father will he give him a stone? If he ask a fish will he 
give him a serpent? If he ask an egg will he give him a 
scorpion? If ye then being evil give good gifts unto your 
children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give 
good things to them that ask Him." 

The children were asking for " good things," for neces- 
sary things — " bread, fish, eggs," and not for luxuries 
and bric-a-brac. When we pray for those plain, universal 
necessities to gain sustenance and direction for the inner 
life, we may pray with the same hearty confidence which 
accompanies the natural requests of healthy children in a 
well ordered home. 

Hear the argument of John Fiske for the validity of 
spiritual experience. The subjective powers in man have 
always been developed, he says, with reference to objective 
realities. " The eye was developed in response to the out- 
ward existence of radiant light; the ear in response to the 
outward existence of acoustic vibrations; the mother love 
came in response to the infant's need. Every stage of enlarge- 
ment has had reference to actual existences outside; every- 
where the internal adjustment has been brought about so as 
to harmonize with some actually existing external fact." 



348 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" Now if the relation thus established in the twilight of 
man's existence between the human soul and a world im- 
material and invisible is a relation of which only the sub- 
jective term is real and the objective term non-existent, 
then I say it is something utterly without precedent in the 
whole creation." 

If the capacity of man for fellowship with God through 
prayer is real only at our end of the line and unreal at the 
other, then it is an utter break in the whole method dis- 
cerned in the uniformities of nature. It is the verdict of 
this philosopher therefore and of an ever growing volume 
of valid human testimony that there is an everlasting 
reality in the relation of the human soul to God. Wherefore 
men ought always to pray. 



LVIII 

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS! 

Luke 12 : 13-34 

The Gospel of Luke is the most radical of the four 
touching the perils of property. He sees the constant 
liability of the successful to fall into a haughty, showy, 
self-satisfied mode of life fatal to Christian character. He 
alone records the parables of " Dives and Lazarus," of 
" The Unjust Steward " and of the " Foolish Rich Man." 
His version of Jesus' sayings about wealth are much more 
radical than are the parallel passages in Matthew. His 
warnings to those whose pleasure in material things has 
dulled the conscience are the plainest in Scripture. 

His fundamental principle may be found in these words 
of Christ — " A man's life consists not in the abundance of 
the things he possesses." No life can be judged by the 
pile of things it has amassed. Each life is to be judged 
by the use it makes of the things, by the sort of relation 
that use establishes between the owner and his fellows. 

" How much is that man worth? " The reply commonly 
comes back in a statement as to the value of the things he 
owns. This is what you wished to know perhaps, but it 
tells you nothing about the worth of the man — it only 
tells you the price of the things. 

The man may be worth a great deal — if he has been 
doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God, 
he has great value in addition to all the things he may 
possess. If he has been unjust, hard, selfish, then he is 
scarcely worth anything. The worth of the man turns upon 

349 



350 THE MASTER'S WAY 

his qualities of mind and heart, upon the amount of good 
he has done and the sort of character he has won. 

"There is no real wealth but life," Ruskin said — "life 
with all its powers of love, joy, admiration. That country 
is richest which nourishes the largest number of noble and 
happy human beings. That man is richest who has the 
widest and deepest influence for good upon the lives of 
others." The life is ever a thing personal and apart from 
the things possessed, be they many or be they few. 

In urging this plain truth Jesus sought to allay the 
anxiety which many people feel touching their possessions 
11 Be not anxious what ye shall eat or drink or put on." 
These are not matters of indifference — the Heavenly 
Father knows that we have need of all these things — 
but they are not the main issues. Yet how many people 
boost these questions into an unwarranted prominence. 

" What shall we eat? " How much of it? How costly 
shall the dining-room be where we eat it and the kitchen 
where it is prepared? How many servants shall we keep to 
cook and to serve it? How much shall we spend on the 
linen and the china, the silver and the cut glass we use in 
getting it down our throats? There are well-to-do people 
who live in a chronic state of anxiety over these questions 
which have to do with eating. 

" What shall we put on? " and what is still more vital, 
" How will it look when we get it on? " How numerous, how 
costly and of what particular style shall these all-important 
garments be? The simple question of clothes eats up a 
large section of the time, thought and money in many a life. 

Whole sections of modern society are kept on a tension — 
the men in making the necessary money and the women in 
spending it — by these two plain questions as to what shall 
go into these bodies of ours and what shall be wrapped 
around them. 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 351 

Yet what simple matters they are! It does not require 
much food to maintain health and strength. John Muir 
takes a bag of bread, a piece of bacon, a handful of tea 
and goes off in the Sierra Nevada mountains for a month — 
and with all his exposure he abides in health and strength 
at a ripe old age. We have made eating unnecessarily 
difficult with elaborate dishes alike perilous to purse and 
to stomach. 

We have also made the outer wrappings of these bodies 
of ours a veritable burden of anxiety. We must wear some- 
thing for comfort, for decency, for beauty, but how difficult 
and expensive we have made the matter of covering the 
human body! Display is the ruling idea rather than 
comfort. And all the costly, irritating, vulgar display in 
this matter of dress, with the consequent fret and fuss, 
is in flat defiance of the Master's word. 

In the face of this fretted, worried habit of mind, Jesus 
pointed to the birds and to the flowers. " Consider the 
ravens — they neither sow nor reap, yet God feeds them. 
Consider the lilies, how they grow — they toil not nor 
spin, yet God clothes them. Ye are much better than 
they." 

Sweet and beautiful ideals these are, but to many a busy 
person they seem futile. He cannot be a lily or a raven 
and do his work. He throws out the whole passage as a 
piece of sentimental idealism uttered by an Oriental 
dreamer and entirely unsuited to this active Western 
world. Thus men take the letter of Scripture which killeth 
and neglect the spirit which maketh alive. 

The lily does not toil nor spin — it was not made to toil 
and spin. It does the things it was made to do. It 
reaches down into the soil claiming its nourishment. It 
looks up steadily into the face of the sun claiming light 
and warmth. It opens wide its leaves to the rain and the dew, 



352 THE MASTER'S WAY 






drinking the water of heaven. So it grows! It lives out 
its lilyhood and God clothes it with beaut}-. 

The ravens do not sow nor reap — they were not made 
to sow nor reap, nor are they impelled to build storehouses 
and barns. They do the things they were meant to do. 
They fly about, keen of eye and strong of wing, seeking 
their meat from God. And in the great abiding order 
which enfolds them they find their food. They live out 
their ravenhood and God feeds them. 

Live out your manhood and your womanhood, doing 
the things you were meant to do and God will feed and 
clothe you! You will not cease toiling and spinning — 
you were not made to be lilies. You will not give up 
sowing and reaping — you were not made to be ravens. 
You will strive for your self-realization along the line of the 
divine purpose for you. And when you do just that, you 
will be lifted above the fret and worry into a serene peace. 
In the great abiding order which enfolds your life, you too 
will be fed and clothed. Seek first the sway and rule of 
the divine spirit in your life, bringing it into that harmony 
which the birds and the flowers show with his purpose for 
you and all things necessary will be added. 

The Master was moved to utter this great principle by 
the impatient word of a man who said, " Master, speak to 
my brother that he divide the inheritance with me." The 
father had died leaving an estate over which the sons had 
quarreled after the manner of some. Jesus answered, "Who 
made me a judge or a divider over you?" Xo one had. 
The Master declined to pass upon the division of the estate. 

But he had something to say to both disputants — 
11 Beware of covetousness." He would warn both parties 
against that selfish, short-sighted exaltation of material 
values to the supreme place which ever arrays men in 
antagonism. 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 353 

The Christian Church does not undertake to be a judge 
or a divider in economic disputes. The employes in a 
given industry may demand higher wages while the em- 
ployer maintains that he is paying all that the business 
warrants. The church does not undertake to pass upon the 
economic question as to the proper amount of wages. 
But it has something to say to both parties. Beware 
of covetousness! 

The Christian employer is in duty bound to pay in wages 
an equitable share of the returns of the industry to those 
plain toilers who help maintain it and not retain an unfair 
amount of the joint product for his own showy luxuries. 
Wage-earners are in duty bound to accept those wages which 
can be shown to be equitable and not insist upon a scale 
that would destroy the industry which affords them a liveli- 
hood. The exact amount of the wage must be determined 
by sound economic judgment in the light of all the facts, 
but the spirit in which that question is discussed and de- 
termined is a constant and an immediate object of the 
Church's concern. 

There was a man who gained more than his barns would 
hold. He tore them all down and built greater. He then 
speedily filled those bigger barns. He estimated his own 
well-being in terms of that which is to be found in barns. 
He said to his inner life: "Take thine ease! Thou hast 
enough laid up to last for years. Eat, drink, be merry." 

God bluntly called him " Thou fool." And the discrimi- 
nating part of the world calls him " fool." And in the 
clearer light of that morning which followed upon the night 
when his soul was required of him, he called himself all 
kinds of a " fool." 

"This night thy soul shall be required — then whose 
shall those things be? " Not his surely, for he could carry 
none of them with him. Not his surely, for he had not 



354 



THE MASTER'S WAY 



used them to develop character in his own life or in the 
lives of other men whose interests were bound up with his 
own. He had given his life to the filling of barns and 
now in the presence of those searching standards which 
have to do with moral and spiritual values, he found him- 
self destitute indeed. "So is every one who lays up for 
himself and is not rich toward God! " 

The highest word of commendation in scripture touching 
the use of property was spoken, not to the generous alms- 
giver, but to the wise and faithful steward administering 
his possessions with such intelligence and conscience as to 
make them a blessing to the entire community. The giv- 
ing outright of a hundred thousand dollars in charity is an 
easier and a lower task than the investment of that amount 
in some useful industry to be so maintained as to give health- 
ful, remunerative employment to a hundred* human beings. 
This higher, harder task is the work of the faithful steward 
who comes in for a royal benediction. 



LIX 

THE FIDELITY OF THE SERVANT 

Luke 12 : 35-48 

" Blessed are those servants whom their Lord when he 
cometh shall find watching." Their master had tarried 
late at a wedding, but meanwhile the servants were on 
duty. They had their long, flowing Eastern robes tucked 
into their girdles and their lamps lighted. When the 
Master returned and knocked, they were ready to " open 
unto him immediately." 

It was a simple, commonplace service they rendered, 
just as the larger part of what we all do six days in the 
week, not to say seven, is thoroughly commonplace. The 
housekeeper makes beds which have already been made 
hundreds of times, and they will all have to be made again 
tomorrow morning. The business man goes to his store 
to talk about sales, figure on contracts and write letters, 
the same sort of sales, contracts and letters to which he 
has been giving attention for years. The teacher enters her 
schoolroom to face forty restless urchins, the same sort of 
urchins she has been facing ever since she was elected, 
none of them eager to be educated, but all of them looking 
upon her as the common enemy. The minister enters his 
study to prepare two more sermons for next Sunday — 
he has been busy for the last twenty years " getting ready 
for next Sunday," and here he is doing it again. 

It is not given to many people in any generation to do 
startling, heroic or memorable things. You could get all 
the remarkable people in any century into one small 

355 



356 THE MASTER'S WAY 

building, leaving the rest of the human race outside doing 
commonplace things. We are like the switch engines down 
in the freight yard — we are never hitched to the "Over- 
land Limited " to draw it swiftly and surely across the 
continent until it lands its passengers at the Golden Gate. 
We are puffing to and fro within the limits of a narrow 
yard, doing the plain work which somebody must do if the 
great traffic of human existence is to be carried along. 

But when these homely tasks are done with watchfulness 
and fidelity 7 , they take on at once a deeper meaning and a 
higher value. When the master of the house found his 
faithful servants watching late into the night, he did a 
most extraordinary thing to show his appreciation. ' He 
girded himself and made them sit down to meat and came 
forth and served them." Inasmuch as they had shown 
their fidelity in serving him, he will serve them by minis- 
tering in gracious fashion to their pleasure. 

The drudgery of service is commonplace, but the doing 
of one's best is not commonplace. Business men who are 
large employers of labor tell me that it is by no means 
easy to get men who will do what they can do and do it 
well and keep right along doing it just as the clock keeps 
on ticking and striking and telling the hours. The man 
who is found doing his duty whether the eye of inspec- 
tion falls upon him in the second watch or the third watch 
or in the gray dawn is a man to be sought out and hon- 
ored. " Blessed are those servants." They are not serv- 
ing those " who are their masters according to the flesh 
with eye service as men-pleasers," but " in singleness of 
heart they are serving God." 

When Colonel Waring was placed at the head of the 
street cleaning department of the city of New York he 
found the streets and alleys dirty, the sanitary conditions 
bad and the death rate high. Now the work of the scaven- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 357 

ger is a lowly form of service. He goes about in humble 
fashion with his shovel and broom, or carries out the ashes 
and garbage from the back door, to be hauled away to the 
dump. The first thing Colonel Waring did was to dignify 
that service by dressing up all the street cleaners in white 
uniforms. He then marched them up Fifth Avenue in a 
great parade, each man carrying his shovel and broom, as 
soldiers carry their guns when they march through our 
streets on their way to the front. He then lined them up 
and told them that they were " the conservators of the 
city's health "; that they were there " to protect the great 
city of New York from the inroads of disease as it is bred 
in filthy streets." 

When those Irishmen and Italians heard themselves 
talked to like that, every man of them added two cubits 
to his stature. He took up his shovel and broom as the 
insignia of an honorable service. He had his calling inter- 
preted to him by the master he served and he went forth 
to fight his good fight against the attacks of disease. And 
when we read that under Colonel Waring the death rate 
went down from twenty-six to nineteen, and when we think 
of the suffering and sorrow thus averted from countless 
homes, we know that he was right. The faithful servants 
of the city were found with their loins girded and their 
lamps burning, doing their duty in the watch assigned them 
with a high sense of its far-reaching significance. 

The other illustration Jesus used to show the need of 
watchfulness was the unexpected coming of the thief. If 
the good man of the house had known what hour the thief 
would come, he would have watched and not have allowed 
his house to be broken into. Here is the same demand 
that those protectors of the common interest shall be alert, 
on their feet, girded for action, ready to repel attack! 

The moral life of the individual and of the race needs 



358 THE MASTER'S WAY 

to be on its guard against those insidious enemies whose 
approach is stealthy, unexpected and malevolent like the 
approach of the thief. "Be ye therefore ready also." 
Eternal vigilance is the price of character. The man of 
fine purpose if he is not to be deflected from his course, 
or cast down from his high level of thought and feeling, 
or baffled in his effort to accomplish good by some unex- 
pected turn of events, must likewise be alert, on his feet, 
girded for action, with his zeal burning. 

How many enemies are abroad, creeping along the dark 
side of the street, intent upon robbing the innocent of their 
money, of their good names, of their faith or of their char- 
acter. Wolves do not always come in wolves' clothing, with 
teeth and claws and shaggy hair — they come in sheepskin 
and fine wool or they may come arrayed like the pretending 
grandmother of Red Riding Hood. Their appearance is 
deceptive. Therefore the Master says," Watch." Faith in 
Christ is an invaluable possession and there are thieves 
abroad to steal it. " Take heed then what ye hear." 
Many a Christian had he known in what companion or 
book or play the thief would come, " would have watched 
and would not have suffered his house to be broken up." 

Here Peter, always the spokesman for the Twelve, breaks 
in: " Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even 
unto all? " In the parallel passage in Matthew we find 
a direct reply to Peter's question, " What I say unto you I 
say unto all, Watch." In the interests of character (both 
his and our most valued possession) Jesus insists upon 
that loyal vigilance necessary for its safeguarding. 

The high quality of watchful fidelity here demanded is 
only possible to the spirit of moral faith. Here is a lonely 
picket out at the edge of the lines! The night is cold and 
stormy as he paces to and fro in the dark and sleet, weary 
and anxious. He does not know the present location of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 387 

history " seems like the broken words of men talking in 
their sleep. The men who advocate these views are build- 
ing ambitious doctrines on insufficient data. They are 
over-emphasizing a single set of facts, leaving out of their 
consideration other determining factors. 

Tell the veterans of our Civil War to apply the doctrine 
of " the economic interpretation of history " to what they 
did! Tell them that they enlisted and went South to be 
shot at because of their love for the magnificent sum of 
fourteen dollars a month and hardtack! They would laugh 
the notion to scorn. They went down cheerily to hard- 
ship, disease and death sustained by their devotion to two 
great ideals — the preservation of the integrity of our com- 
mon country and the wiping away from this broad land 
of the stain of slavery. They knew and we know and God 
knows that history is shaped by great ideals as those 
ideals become incarnate in human personality. The king- 
dom of heaven is within men — it always has been, is now 
and ever shall be. 

If the world of industry is nothing but the fight of a 
lot of selfish dogs for the possession of some bones, then it 
does not matter much whether the dogs are living under a 
capitalistic system or a socialistic system, the biggest dogs 
will get the best bones and the smaller dogs will stand 
round licking their chops waiting patiently to take what is 
left. But if the world of industry is a family of children, 
with one Father who is in heaven, utilizing the resources 
placed at their disposal by his wise beneficence; and if 
that great truth can be made to sink into their souls, 
maintaining there a sound principle of life, there is hope 
that the strong will joyously bear the infirmities of the 
weak and not merely please themselves. There is hope that 
the principle of consideration for one another shall become 
our Master and all of us be brethren in the practice of that 



360 THE MASTER'S WAY 

It brings out the duty of our own nation and of this 
generation in bold relief. To us beyond any other nation 
much has been given. We are rich in untouched resource, 
in noble tradition, in freedom of opportunity, in ready 
access to those lines of influence which if kept wholesome 
may in Messianic fashion bless all the nations of the earth. 
Knowing our duty and having power to meet it with com- 
petent action, we too shall be beaten with many stripes 
if we fail to show ourselves alert, on our feet, girded for 
action, with the lamp of holy influence alight. 



LX 

MORAL RECLAMATION 

Luke 15 : 1-10 

It is in the air. What nation having wide areas of arid 
land capable of cultivation by irrigation does not leave 
Iowa and Illinois to their own prosperity and concentrate 
upon Nevada and Arizona until they too shall rejoice in 
harvests? What corporation owning great tracts of tule 
swamp along the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers does 
not leave the fertile acres of the Santa Clara Valley and 
reclaim those swamps until they feed whole cities with 
their yield of vegetables? What manufacturer seeing fifty 
thousand dollars going annually into the ash heap and 
learning that some valuable by-product could be made 
from it, does not at once employ an expert to solve the 
problem and build a reclaiming plant? 

This was the line of argument followed by the Master. 
" These parables get their force because they rest so 
squarely and broadly upon the everyday feelings and ex- 
periences of ordinary men." Here are the courses of action 
which shepherds with lost sheep in the wilderness and 
housekeepers with lost coins about the house, and fathers 
with runaway boys in some far country, have been taking 
ever since the world began. And when we take the natural 
instincts of our hearts at their best and raise them to the 
nth power we have the temper and disposition of Him in 
whose image we are created. 

The three parables came as a reply to a criticism. 
" The publicans and sinners drew near to hear him and the 

361 



390 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" Remember Lot's wife." The homely reference is to 
the shortsighted action of one whose reluctance to sub- 
ordinate her attachment to things external in the face of a 
supreme duty to escape from the fearful judgment which 
was overtaking the foul wickedness of the community in 
which she had dwelt, cost her her life. Remember the folly 
of those unhappy souls whose fond attachment to things 
perishable has cut them off from the possession of treasures 
which endure. 

In that primitive picture of moral processes we read that 
" Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of 
the Lord God among the trees of the garden." The garden 
was good, a place of the Lord's own planting, and the trees 
formed an essential part of it. But somehow the man and 
the woman allowed the lovely trees which sheltered, shaded 
and fed them to obscure the God who had given them the 
garden. "The Great Lord save our civilization and save 
us from the power of our civilization, keeping us where we 
can see his face and hear his voice in spite of the trees." 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 383 

the man in the palace is not given — he was merely " A 
Certain Rich Man." In these days everybody knows the 
names of the rich men and nobody knows the names of the 
beggars. But the first shall be last and the last first when 
the more searching appraisement of the Master is laid upon 
the values involved. 

The adequacy of the moral appeal of the truth, all apart 
from " signs and wonders," is here again affirmed by our 
Lord. "They have Moses and the prophets — let them 
hear them." But there was an insistence upon some form 
of physical demonstration which might further validate the 
moral claim of the truth. "If one went to them from the 
dead, they would repent." But the same reply came back, 
" If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will 
they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." It 
was the habit of the Master to exalt the moral appeal 
far above the compelling " sign " or " wonder " for which 
the popular interest clamored. " Ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free." 

The inequality of condition pictured and the selfish 
disregard shown by comfort to helpless need are here con- 
demned by our Lord as in the highest degree reprehensible. 
They led to a still more glaring inequality of condition in 
that future world where Lazarus was " comforted " and the 
selfish worldling was " tormented." 

How far can the showy luxury of many professedly 
Christian households in our own day justify itself at the bar 
of conscience when ranged up alongside of the bitter, des- 
perate, degrading poverty within gunshot! 

There are people in all our cities who live without 
working — they toil not neither do they spin, yet they are 
clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every 
day. And there are other people who work without living. 
They toil and spin in whirring mills and noisy factories; 



364 THE MASTER'S WAY 

medium of devotion and aspiration with which the moral 
traffic of the world is carried ahead! He is lost! 

In the face of such a situation, the action of the good 
shepherd is prompt. He leaves the ninety and nine and 
goes after the one that is lost. The parable makes plain 
the fact that " a working majority," the ability to vote 
fifty-one per cent, of the capital stock, does not satisfy 
the heart of the Master of the Higher Values. He is not 
aiming merely for " the greatest good of the greatest number " 
— his redemptive purpose is searching, personal, intimate. 
He moves straight for that one life which needs him most. 

This first parable emphasizes more than either of the 
others the fact that though the loss in comparison to what 
is retained be small, still the owner of those values fares 
forth at once intent upon its recovery. The mother of 
twelve children misses one face from the table or one tiny 
form from her protecting arms as promptly and as sadly 
as the mother of two would miss the half of her brood. 
And the scale of the Eternal Love is infinite so that in a 
multitude which no man could number He detects the 
absence of a single child. 

The community of feeling between the shepherd and the 
sheep underlies this saving impulse. The shepherd has 
lived with his flock for years on terms of intimate com- 
panionship. His loving interest leaping "the wide bound- 
ary of their diverse natures has come to know how a sheep 
feels," as Theodore T. Munger once said. " When it is 
lost, his shepherd heart goes after it in its strange loneli- 
ness, pities its fear as it hears the howl of the wolf, shares 
its weariness as it wanders aimless, suffers in its degrada- 
tion as it grows hungry and lean, wild and unlike itself in 
its danger-haunted life." In like manner, " it is Christ's 
absolute consciousness of lost humanity that makes him its 
seeking Saviour." 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 365 

And when the shepherd has found the unhappy object 
of his search " he lays it on his shoulders." This was an 
act unusual. The sheep were commonly led and guided by 
the shepherd, but each one was expected to follow upon 
its own four feet. Here, however, compassion overflows 
its accustomed channels, bearing upon its strength the 
frightened, wearied, helpless object of its care. What a 
picture of the seeking, saving, sacrificial love of that Great 
Shepherd of the sheep! 

The greater the nature the more immediate the response 
to those forces which are universal. The ocean yields 
to the power of gravitation as the moon changes her posi- 
tion, drawing along with her the mighty tides in a manner 
not observable in the rivers and lakes. The lesser bodies 
of water feel the same power, but do not make the same 
visible response. The greater the nature the more apparent 
the response made to that universal impulse to recover that 
which is lost. The love of God for needy humanity makes 
that supreme response to be found in the gift of his Son 
to be our Saviour. 

When the sheep and the coin were found, both the shep- 
herd and the housewife called in friends and neighbors 
to share in the rejoicing. " Likewise joy shall be in heaven 
among the angels of God over one sinner that repent- 
eth." The lines of sympathy run perpendicularly as well as 
horizontally. The social gladness of a group of neighbors 
over the recovery of a lost bit of value has its glorious 
counterpart in that social gladness which extends into the 
Unseen World over the moral recovery of a single life. 

The Son of Man, knowing what was in man and needing 
not that any should tell him, so taught that he constantly 
had the fundamental facts of human nature on his . side. 
When he spoke of prayer, it was, " What man of you if 
his son asks bread, gives him a stone?" When he spoke of 



386 THE MASTER'S WAY 

accept the implications of this fundamental principle. Its 
eyes are still upon mechanism and its confidence in some 
external appliance to usher in the reign of human well- 
being rather than in those inward, spiritual transformations 
which have in them potent promise of lasting good. 

In these days of wireless telegraphy the ships whisper 
to each other across the sea. No one who watches the 
process from the outside sees anything or hears anything — 
only those who are doing the whispering understand. And 
in all the busy haunts of men the needs, the yearnings, the 
unrealized capacities of the plain people are whispering to 
the heart of God. The maker of headlines and pictures 
cannot behold this process and say, " Lo here " or " Lo 
there." But the Lord hears and feels and understands. 
He is a Perfect Receiver as well as the Great Giver. He 
hears and makes response and thus the kingdom comes 
without observation. 

In these days when many have fallen into a way of 
thinking that nothing can be done until we get a majority 
and a big organization, a Constitution and By-laws, twenty- 
five committees and much machinery of all kinds, it is 
refreshing to turn back to the method of Jesus in making 
the world better. I wonder if he ever served on a com- 
mittee — nothing is said about it. He moved about 
among men " a creative, masterful, triumphant personality " 
with the kingdom of God in his own soul. He spoke to 
the best that was within the breasts of those he met and 
that best made its response in such terms that others knew 
of a truth that the kingdom of heaven was also within 
them. The power of initiative was in waiting in every 
human heart listening for the summons to act. 

This talk about people being the helpless victims of 
circumstances; this talk about men being ruled entirely by 
dollars; this talk about " the economic interpretation of 



XLIII 

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS 

Luke 16 : 19-31 

There is a certain cast iron hardness about this parable. 
You cannot bend it nor twist it to suit your personal 
preference. There is no soft spot in it where a selfish 
man can lie down and feel comfortable. It stands up 
grim, stiff, ominous. 

The harsh aspects of truth have their place in Scripture 
as in human experience. We are not fed mainly on ice- 
cream in this world. If any life were given nothing but 
spoon meat, never setting its teeth on anything hard, it 
would grow soft and pulpy. The firm, solid truths which 
need mastication through serious reflection before they can 
be assimilated have their place on the Lord's table. 

This parable contains that oft repeated word of Christ 
here made flesh to the effect that the unpardonable sins 
are not the coarse sins of the flesh but the subtler sins of a 
selfish inhumanity. We note that the fault of the man 
who found himself in perdition was negative. He stood 
condemned in the day of judgment — what had he done? 
Which one of the Ten Commandments had he broken? 
No crime is mentioned. Killing, stealing, adultery, lying, 
drunkenness, profanity — none of these is laid at his door. 

There is no hint given that he had gained a penny of 
his wealth wrongfully. He gained a competence, ate well, 
dressed well, enjoyed himself generally every day in the 
week. There is nothing wrong in all this. He was damned 
not by the wicked things he had done, but by his thought- 

379 



368 THE MASTER'S WAY 

can be read entire in three or four minutes, yet it fairly 
boxes the compass of fundamental theological belief. 

Here is the divine Fatherhood! The man had two sons 
and his attitude from first to last is parental. 

Here is our filial standing in the family of God! The 
sinful son was still a son, even as the lost sheep was none 
the less a sheep and never a goat or a wolf. When the 
young man came back ragged and guilty, footsore and sin- 
stained, he was still in the eyes of the father, " My son." 

Here is our dependence upon God and the unescapable 
responsibility which springs from it! The son must say to 
the Father, " Give me," to secure the very means employed 
in doing wrong. 

What is sin? It is the act of a son who would make his 
life separate and selfish, taking his portion of goods away 
from the eye of the Father. He refuses any higher direc- 
tion, or any diviner form of fellowship, to the end that 
being thus freed from all sense of obligation he may dwell in 
that " far country." 

What is retribution? It is the famine, the sense of 
wasted substance, the gnawing of unrelieved hunger, the 
heartless refusal of one's surroundings to give the wrong- 
doer what is so sorely needed. This penalty comes inevita- 
bly when the life has been spending itself in disobedience. 

Here is conviction of sin! The young man having gone 
through all he had, and feeling the bite of retribution, 
knew that he alone was to blame. He did not say, " Had 
my father been less indulgent with me," or, "I was un- 
fortunate in some of my associates." He said in frank 
recognition of his own blameworthiness, " I have sinned." 
His outward and inward destitution when he was hungry 
enough to eat husks and lonely enough to make friends 
with the hogs had come upon him by his own acts. 

Here is the first intimation of a coming salvation — 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 369 

"He came to himself." Salvation is just that — it is 
self-recovery, self-realization. It was not his real self that 
had been wasting money and time, manhood and honor, 
with the harlots — it was a false, unreal self, a usurper to 
be cast out by his true self. 

Here is faith, saving faith! He remembered that he had 
a father and that in that father's house there was bread 
enough and to spare. He pictured to himself, by the aid 
of his moral imagination, a situation far distant. He did 
it so effectively that it became operative in terms of action. 
He had faith to believe that the Father would still receive 
him, at least on the footing of a hired servant, in that 
house where there was bread for the hunger he felt. And 
that faith brought him to his feet — he was saved by his 
faith. 

Here is repentance! His hunger, his feeling of regret, 
his tearful remorse over the loss suffered by his own wrong- 
doing did not constitute repentance. Repentance is not 
made up of a series of weak and wet sobs. These may 
spring merely from a sense of discomfort or from the dis- 
grace one suffers in being found out. Repentance involves 
definite heroic action — it means an about face morally. 
"He arose and came to his father" — getting out of the 
far country, away from the debasing associations, back 
where he belonged. That was indeed repentance. 

Here is the great sublime fact of forgiveness! " His 
father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on 
his neck and kissed him " — and all this before the son had 
time to utter his carefully framed confession. But it was 
enough — his presence, his look, his need, all indicated that 
he was in a mood to be saved. 

Here is the open confession of sin demanded for " cleans- 
ing the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs 
upon the heart." The son had no rest until he stood out 



382 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the idea, the truth of God is held before him! His own 
heart does not react in love under the stimulus of human 
need. Between him and the prayerful, godly, loving life 
he might have lived there is a great gulf fixed by his own 
persistent neglect. We ignore any of the higher, finer 
values in human existence at our peril — by and by we see 
that they are beyond our reach. 

This persistence of type has its good as well as its evil 
aspect. It aids us mightily when we stand on the right side 
of the crevass. Good character also tends to fixity. When 
the right has been chosen a thousand times the appropriate 
action becomes well-nigh automatic. Between the soul 
thus established in ways of righteousness and the ways of 
evil there is a great gulf fixed consequent upon years of 
plain fidelity to duty. 

The parable is not to be pressed on all fours. There is 
no suggestion here that every rich man goes into a place of 
torment and every poor man to Abraham's bosom. Dives 
is not sent to hell because he is rich but because he has 
shown himself inhuman. The varying circumstances of 
men of which we make so much were scarcely noticed by 
the Master. He was intent upon the quality of the life 
within rather than upon the richness or the simplicity of its 
outward setting. 

The picture includes no reference to the earthly character 
of Lazarus — this is to be inferred by what followed. And 
it might have weakened the power of the appeal had Jesus 
represented him as a saint. It was enough that he was a 
sufferer. Regardless of his personal worth, his dire need 
established a claim at Dives' gate which must not be 
ignored. 

How many current estimates are reversed by the Divine 
Judgment! Jesus called the beggar on the curbstone by 
name — Lazarus, "One whom God helps." The name of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 375 

" How often the man of affairs is tempted to feel a cer- 
tain contempt for the Church of Christ when he turns from 
the intensely real issues of his weekday world to the ab- 
stractness and unreality of religious questions! How ficti- 
tious, how unbusinesslike, how preposterous is this interne- 
cine sectarianism and impotent sentimentalism where there 
might be the triumphant march of one army under one 
flag! Let us learn the lesson which even the grasping, un- 
scrupulous world has to teach — the lesson of an absorbed 
and disciplined mind giving its entire sagacity to the chief 
business of life." 

Here we find what a rich man said to his agent in com- 
mendation of his clever prudence! '■' And I say unto you" 
Jesus added, carrying his plea for better methods to the 
higher levels of moral effort. " In your own interest make 
friends by the use you make of your money." Make 
such friends as will be able when you fail to receive you 
into eternal habitations. Let your accounts of accumula- 
tion and of benevolence show, when you close up your 
earthly stewardship, that you are indeed " rich toward 
God." The inculcation of this prudent, far-seeing wisdom 
which disdains the mere satisfaction of appetite in the 
passing moment and employs its means for insuring a 
stable and enjoyable future, stands out as the one great 
lesson of the parable. 

It may be objected that the motive of mere prudence is 
not the highest form of motive. The point is well taken. 
The Master did not always bring out the heaviest guns in 
his moral armament — he gratefully used the small fire of 
less weighty considerations. 

We have the moral deficiencies of this line of appeal set 
before us in all its nakedness in what is called, " Pascal's 
Wager." " You must either believe or not believe, that God 
is — which will you do? Your human reason cannot say. 



372 THE MASTER'S WAY 

with these cardinal positions made plain to us by the Son 
of God in " The Pearl of the Parables." 

The exercise of saving faith does not create a relation 

— it restores a relation which has been allowed to lapse 
by wrongdoing. " How natural it all is," Dr. Peabody 
says! " Here is an infinite law of love at the heart of the 
universe — that is the center of theology! Here is a world 
that permits moral alienation through the free will of man 

— that is the problem of philosophy! He came to himself 

— that is the heart of ethics! I will go to my Father — 
that is the soul of religion." 



LXII 
COMMON SENSE IN RELIGION 
Luke 16 : 1-13 

The message in this parable of The Unjust Steward has 
been a hard saying to many. It seemed to put a premium 
on dishonesty, and they could not receive it. It seemed to 
hold up a bad man for Christian imitation. 

The dry, literal treatment of it does land us in moral 
inconsistency. The attempt to find some exact counter- 
part for each item results in confusion worse confounded. 
The best of illustrations are not meant to go on all fours 
— their method of locomotion is not that of the quadruped 
and four-footed minds are likely to make a mess of them. 
In every such passage we are to move straight for the 
central, vital point. 

The agent of a rich man was about to be discharged. 
11 Render an account of thy stewardship for thou canst be 
no longer steward." The agent had too little physical 
strength to dig and too much pride to beg — so the problem 
of bread and butter became serious. 

He decided to use the brief term of stewardship yet re- 
maining to make for himself friends who in gratitude for 
favors done to them would receive and aid him when he 
lost his position. He called in the debtors of his chief 
one after another, and " wrote off " a certain percentage 
of each man's indebtedness, giving him a receipt in full. 

His principal " commended the unjust steward because 
he had done" — not honorably nor faithfully nor grate- 
fully but — " wisely." He had acted shrewdly, cleverly, 

373 



378 THE MASTER'S WAY 

makes its appeal to us all. The people who inherit all 
their money do not necessarily amount to anything — all 
they had to do was to wait for somebody to die. The men 
who make their money gambling either at a green table or 
on the stock exchange do not interest us — to become rich 
they made other people poor. But the man who stands 
up with nothing but his own energy of body and skill of 
brain to accumulate wealth by increasing production does 
make a strong appeal. 

Then if his wise and generous use of his gains makes 
friends for him and for the whole business of producing 
and administering wealth in harmony with high principles 
and noble ideals, he has rendered this world more habitable. 
He has also aided in building those eternal habitations of 
good will which may well be made the legitimate objects of 
our desire. 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 375 

" How often the man of affairs is tempted to feel a cer- 
tain contempt for the Church of Christ when he turns from 
the intensely real issues of his weekday world to the ab- 
stractness and unreality of religious questions! How ficti- 
tious, how unbusinesslike, how preposterous is this interne- 
cine sectarianism and impotent sentimentalism where there 
might be the triumphant march of one army under one 
flag! Let us learn the lesson which even the grasping, un- 
scrupulous world has to teach — the lesson of an absorbed 
and disciplined mind giving its entire sagacity to the chief 
business of life." 

Here we find what a rich man said to his agent in com- 
mendation of his clever prudence! " And / say unto you" 
Jesus added, carrying his plea for better methods to the 
higher levels of moral effort. " In your own interest make 
friends by the use you make of your money." Make 
such friends as will be able when you fail to receive you 
into eternal habitations. Let your accounts of accumula- 
tion and of benevolence show, when you close up your 
earthly stewardship, that you are indeed " rich toward 
God." The inculcation of this prudent, far-seeing wisdom 
which disdains the mere satisfaction of appetite in the 
passing moment and employs its means for insuring a 
stable and enjoyable future, stands out as the one great 
lesson of the parable. 

It may be objected that the motive of mere prudence is 
not the highest form of motive. The point is well taken. 
The Master did not always bring out the heaviest guns in 
his moral armament — he gratefully used the small fire of 
less weighty considerations. 

We have the moral deficiencies of this line of appeal set 
before us in all its nakedness in what is called, " Pascal's 
Wager." " You must either believe or not believe, that God 
is — which will you do? Your human reason cannot say. 



376 THE MASTER'S WAY 

A game is going on between you and the nature of things 
which at the day of judgment will bring out either heads or 
tails. Weigh what your gains and losses would be if you 
should stake all you have on God's existence! If you win 
in such a case, you gain eternal beatitude. If you lose, you 
lose nothing at all. If there were an infinity of chances in 
this wager and only one for God, still you ought to stake 
your all on God. Though you risk a finite loss by this 
procedure, any finite loss is reasonable, if there is but the 
possibility of infinite gain." 

This is not putting it on a very high plane — it is on a 
very low plane. But the man who would go upstairs must 
step on the lowest step as well as upon the highest. The 
Master, therefore, became all things to all men in his 
varying methods of spiritual appeal that by all means he 
might save some. 

It is a well known fact that generosity makes friends. 
The unjust steward understood that principle and acted 
upon it for his own advantage. Generosity makes friends 
here and hereafter. "It is more blessed," for the life that 
now is and also for the life which is to come, " to give 
than to receive." Therefore let the whole administration 
of your means be like the well-considered work of a man 
building for himself an eternal habitation and filling it with 
grateful friends to give him welcome " when he fails." 

Having gotten out the main point in the parable clear 
and strong the Master embodies his teaching in certain 
definite principles. " He that is faithful in that which is 
least is faithful also in much." One can judge of a man's 
character and methods touching those transcendent, endur- 
ing values by the measure of wisdom and conscience he 
shows in the use of his money. Here is the epitaph on 
the tomb of a French layman who had counted himself 
the Lord's steward : 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 377 

" He exported his fortune into heaven by his charities. 
He has gone thither to enjoy it." 

He was manifestly a man wise as well as faithful in his 
generation to merit such an epitaph. 

" No servant" — slave was the word Jesus used, to indi- 
cate one who was completely at the disposal of another's 
will — " can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and 
Mammon." It is impossible to be absolutely at the dis- 
posal of God and absolutely at the beck and call of ma- 
terial gain without getting things mixed. But it is possible 
and in the highest degree desirable that every man of 
affairs should serve God with his money. 

You can be the slave of money if you will — and with 
such a master it will be a dog's life that you will lead. 
It will be a sad death that you will die. You can be 
afraid of money and count it an enemy to be feared and 
shunned if you will. The ascetics run away from money 
by their wild vows of voluntary poverty, leaving the rest of 
us to fight the battle without that measure of moral 
strength which they could have supplied. The wise man 
makes money, not his master nor his enemy, but his friend; 
and he uses it in such a way as to make countless other 
men his friends by the generous service he has rendered 
with his means. 

The teachings of Jesus show a healthy tone regarding 
this matter of money when we come to group, relate and 
rightly interpret them. He knew what was in life and 
needed not that any should tell him. He showed none of 
the morbid, feverish, panic-stricken attitude which ^the 
cloistered ascetics have shown in their scorn of wealth. 

The career of an honest man who goes forth to develop 
the resources of some new region or to increase the scope of 
some industrial enterprise by making it still more a social 
utility, and in so doing accumulates for himself a fortune, 



378 THE MASTER'S WAY 

makes its appeal to us all. The people who inherit all 
their money do not necessarily amount to anything — all 
they had to do was to wait for somebody to die. The men 
who make their money gambling either at a green table or 
on the stock exchange do not interest us — to become rich 
they made other people poor. But the man who stands 
up with nothing but his own energy of body and skill of 
brain to accumulate wealth by increasing production does 
make a strong appeal. 

Then if his wise and generous use of his gains makes 
friends for him and for the whole business of producing 
and administering wealth in harmony with high principles 
and noble ideals, he has rendered this world more habitable. 
He has also aided in building those eternal habitations of 
good will which may well be made the legitimate objects of 
our desire. 



XLIII 

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS 

Luke 16 : 19-31 

There is a certain cast iron hardness about this parable. 
You cannot bend it nor twist it to suit your personal 
preference. There is no soft spot in it where a selfish 
man can lie down and feel comfortable. It stands up 
grim, stiff, ominous. 

The harsh aspects of truth have their place in Scripture 
as in human experience. We are not fed mainly on ice- 
cream in this world. If any life were given nothing but 
spoon meat, never setting its teeth on anything hard, it 
would grow soft and pulpy. The firm, solid truths which 
need mastication through serious reflection before they can 
be assimilated have their place on the Lord's table. 

This parable contains that oft repeated word of Christ 
here made flesh to the effect that the unpardonable sins 
are not the coarse sins of the flesh but the subtler sins of a 
selfish inhumanity. We note that the fault of the man 
who found himself in perdition was negative. He stood 
condemned in the day of judgment — what had he done? 
Which one of the Ten Commandments had he broken? 
No crime is mentioned. Killing, stealing, adultery, lying, 
drunkenness, profanity — none of these is laid at his door. 

There is no hint given that he had gained a penny of 
his wealth wrongfully. He gained a competence, ate well, 
dressed well, enjoyed himself generally every day in the 
week. There is nothing wrong in all this. He was damned 
not by the wicked things he had done, but by his thought- 

379 



380 THE MASTER'S WAY 

less, selfish neglect of those humane deeds he ought to 
have done. 

His fault was selfish inhumanity. There at his own gate, 
where he saw the fellow every time he passed out or in, 
was a sick beggar. The man was so helpless that he could 
not ward off the dogs which came and licked his sore face. 
The rich man was not utterly heartless — he allowed the 
beggar to have " the crumbs " that fell from his table. 
The fact that Lazarus received those morsels of kindness 
accounted for his being there. 

But poor men who are sick need something more than 
11 crumbs " of consideration. This something more the 
rich man failed to supply — the neglected man died at the 
gate of plenty. He died because he had not received that 
friendly aid which the rich man could have given him. And 
because the beggar represented the opportunity for social 
service brought directly under the rich man's eyes the 
charge of selfish inhumanity was clearly established. 

The plainest warnings Jesus uttered had to do with du- 
ties left undone. Study his parables of judgment and you 
find them aimed straight at sins of omission. The foolish 
virgins did not stone the wedding procession nor steal the 
wedding presents nor utter gossipy insinuations about the 
character of the bride — they were shut out for neglecting 
to have oil in their lamps. The man of one talent was 
cast into outer darkness with wailing and gnashing of teeth, 
not because he had done deeds of evil with his talent — 
he had done nothing with it. The souls sent away into 
everlasting punishment had not robbed the poor, nor 
poisoned the sick, nor fleeced the strangers — they had 
simply gone their ways doing nothing at all. " Inasmuch 
as ye did it not to the least of these . . . depart from me." 
Thus the rich man in the parable was simply lacking in 
those positive qualities of neighborliness which are obliga- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 381 

tory under the Christian rule. His selfish indifference to 
those claims which human need lays upon us all became his 
damning sin. The way to perdition is paved with moral 
neglect. 

The somber truth is brought out that by such moral 
neglect men pass beyond recovery. In this parable there 
was "a great gulf fixed." The souls which would pass from 
one condition to another could not. The appeal for relief 
is represented as unavailing. There is such a thing as 
moral failure which passes beyond the hope of remedy. 
Character tends to fixity. 

The language throughout is that of Oriental parable, 
but the meaning is plain. The inability of the man to 
pass from here to there did not arise from the contour of 
the ground or from any arbitrary decree. The inability 
was in the man himself. The " great gulf " represents the 
constant tendency of character to become fixed. Moral 
choices good or bad may be repeated until the inner dispo- 
sition is firm set. 

The helpless drunkard can recall the time when he could 
sit down beside his glass of liquor and drink it if he chose 
or let it alone or empty it on the floor. He could drink 
half of it and throw the rest out of the window. He was 
master of the situation. But the day came when he could 
no longer do that — the liquor had him by the throat. 
When he tried to return to freedom and sobriety he could 
not. What prevented him? The results of his own acts 
registered within. Between him and the sane, sound man 
who was able to ignore the appeal of rum, there was a 
great gulf fixed — it had been dug by the hands of his own 
growing appetite. 

Here is a man who lives a prayerless, godless, unloving 
life until the habit becomes fixed! His lips refuse to move 
in prayer. His heart makes no response when the name, 



182 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the idea, the truth of God is held before him! His own 
heart does not react in love under the stimulus of human 
need. Between him and the prayerful, godly, loving life 
he might have lived there is a great gulf fixed by his own 
a stent neglect. We ignore any of the higher, finer 
values in human existence at our peril — by and by we see 
that they are beyond our reach. 

This persistence of type has its good as well as its evil 
aspect. It aids us mightily when we stand on the right side 
of the crevass. Good character also tends to fixity. When 
the right has been chcsen a thousand times the appropriate 
action becomes well-nigh automatic. Between the soul 
thus established in ways of righteousness and the ways 
evil there is a great gulf fixed consequent upon years of 
plain fidelity to duty. 

The parable is not to be pressed on all fours. There is 
no suggestion here that every rich man gees into a place of 
torment and every poor man to Abraham's bosom. Dives 
is not sent to hell because he is rich but because he has 
shown himself inhuman. The varying circumstances of 
men of which we make so much were scarcely noticed by 
Master. He was intent upon the quality of the life 
within rather than upon the richness cr the simplicity- of its 
outward setting. 

The picture includes no reference to the earthly character 
of Lazarus — this is to be inferred : t followed. And 

it might have weakened the power of the appeal had Jesus 
represented him as a saint. It was enough that he was a 
sufferer. Regardless of his personal worth, his dire need 
established a claim at Dives' gate which must not be 
ignored. 

How many current estimates are reversed by the Divine 
Judgment! Jesus called the beggar on the curbstone by 
name — Lazar r.e whom God help- The name of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 383 

the man in the palace is not given — he was merely "A 
Certain Rich Man." In these days everybody knows the 
names of the rich men and nobody knows the names of the 
beggars. But the first shall be last and the last first when 
the more searching appraisement of the Master is laid upon 
the values involved. 

The adequacy of the moral appeal of the truth, all apart 
from " signs and wonders," is here again affirmed by our 
Lord. "They have Moses and the prophets — let them 
hear them." But there was an insistence upon some form 
of physical demonstration which might further validate the 
moral claim of the truth. "If one went to them from the 
dead, they would repent." But the same reply came back, 
" If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will 
they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." It 
was the habit of the Master to exalt the moral appeal 
far above the compelling " sign " or " wonder " for which 
the popular interest clamored. " Ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free." 

The inequality of condition pictured and the selfish 
disregard shown by comfort to helpless need are here con- 
demned by our Lord as in the highest degree reprehensible. 
They led to a still more glaring inequality of condition in 
that future world where Lazarus was " comforted " and the 
selfish worldling was " tormented." 

How far can the showy luxury of many professedly 
Christian households in our own day justify itself at the bar 
of conscience when ranged up alongside of the bitter, des- 
perate, degrading poverty within gunshot! 

There are people in all our cities who live without 
working — they toil not neither do they spin, yet they are 
clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every 
day. And there are other people who work without living. 
They toil and spin in whirring mills and noisy factories; 



384 THE MASTER'S WAY 

they dig and delve in the mines; and yet their narrow 
portion of human satisfaction could scarcely be called by 
the most liberal interpretation " living." Both classes are 
a standing reproach to Christian civilization. It is the will 
of God that all able-bodied, able-minded men and women 
should " labor six days and do all their work "; and it is his 
will that in the organization of their efforts and in the 
principles which control the distribution of the joint product 
they should come to him that they might have life. 

The social demand of our time is for something more 
fundamental than the occasional open-handed charities 
from Dives to Lazarus. The note of justice is struck in 
the prevailing social demand and it is a deeper note than 
the note of pity. If the people in purple and fine linen 
had only what they actually earn by useful service ren- 
dered to society, and if the men of meager ability had all 
that they earn undiminished by the unjust toll taken from 
it oftentimes by those who stand where they can levy 
upon it, then the threatening unrest and angry agitation 
would be greatly reduced. 

We are all members one of another in the sight of him 
with whom we have to do. The sore spots in the life of 
the man at the gate cannot be ignored. The air of haughty 
indifference and contempt toward the struggles, oftentimes 
ill-advised and blamable, of the working people is not the 
atmosphere of the New Testament. The attitude which 
would deny to the needy anything better than " the crumbs" 
which fall from the table of plenty is sure to bring its 
proud possessor into moral perdition. We have Moses and 
the prophets — let us hear them and heed them if we would 
avert disaster! 



LXIV 
THE UNSEEN ADVANCE OF THE KINGDOM 

Luke 17 : 20-37 

11 The Pharisees asked when the kingdom of God cometh." 
They wanted Jesus to name a date for the expected con- 
summation of moral desire. They had fixed their eyes so 
long and so intently upon the body of religion to the ex- 
clusion of any real fellowship with the soul of it that they 
were incapable of dealing with aught else but the ex- 
ternal. 

They did not realize that a spiritual kingdom begins in 
movements which cannot easily be dated. It proceeds by 
methods which cannot be visibly scheduled. It is like the 
movement of a cool breeze through a tired city at the end 
of a sultry day in midsummer. The breeze brings comfort, 
healing and quickened energy to all the drooping spirits in 
that city, yet no one can tell exactly where it began or to 
what point in space it has gone. So is the life that is 
born of the Spirit. So are the moral movements which are 
to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. The line of 
progress cannot be mapped out in advance, nor can dates 
be set as in the schedules of personally conducted tourists. 

The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation and 
headlines. When the sensation-lovers and the sensation- 
mongers are saying from noisy platforms and from glowing 
billboards, " Lo here," or " Lo there," the chances are that 
they are altogether on the wrong scent. For lo, the Kingdom 
of God is within! 

It has taken the poor deluded world a long time to 

385 



386 THE MASTER'S WAY 

accept the implications of this fundamental principle. Its 
eyes are still upon mechanism and its confidence in some 
external appliance to usher in the reign of human well- 
being rather than in those inward, spiritual transformations 
which have in them potent promise of lasting good. 

In these days of wireless telegraphy the ships whisper 
to each other across the sea. No one who watches the 
process from the outside sees anything or hears anything — 
only those who are doing the whispering understand. And 
in all the busy haunts of men the needs, the yearnings, the 
unrealized capacities of the plain people are whispering to 
the heart of God. The maker of headlines and pictures 
cannot behold this process and say, " Lo here " or " Lo 
there." But the Lord hears and feels and understands. 
He is a Perfect Receiver as well as the Great Giver. He 
hears and makes response and thus the kingdom comes 
without observation. 

In these days when many have fallen into a way of 
thinking that nothing can be done until we get a majority 
and a big organization, a Constitution and By-laws, twenty- 
five committees and much machinery of all kinds, it is 
refreshing to turn back to the method of Jesus in making 
the world better. I wonder if he ever served on a com- 
mittee — nothing is said about it. He moved about 
among men "a creative, masterful, triumphant personality" 
with the kingdom of God in his own soul. He spoke to 
the best that was within the breasts of those he met and 
that best made its response in such terms that others knew 
of a truth that the kingdom of heaven was also within 
them. The power of initiative was in waiting in every 
human heart listening for the summons to act. 

This talk about people being the helpless victims of 
circumstances; this talk about men being ruled entirely by 
dollars; this talk about " the economic interpretation of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 387 

history " seems like the broken words of men talking in 
their sleep. The men who advocate these views are build- 
ing ambitious doctrines on insufficient data. They are 
over-emphasizing a single set of facts, leaving out of their 
consideration other determining factors. 

Tell the veterans of our Civil War to apply the doctrine 
of '• the economic interpretation of history " to what they 
did! Tell them that they enlisted and went South to be 
shot at because of their love for the magnificent sum of 
fourteen dollars a month and hardtack! They would laugh 
the notion to scorn. They went down cheerily to hard- 
ship, disease and death sustained by their devotion to two 
great ideals — the preservation of the integrity of our com- 
mon country and the wiping away from this broad land 
of the stain of slavery. They knew and we know and God 
knows that history is shaped by great ideals as those 
ideals become incarnate in human personality. The king- 
dom of heaven is within men — it always has been, is now 
and ever shall be. 

If the world of industry is nothing but the fight of a 
lot of selfish dogs for the possession of some bones, then it 
does not matter much whether the dogs are living under a 
capitalistic system or a socialistic system, the biggest dogs 
will get the best bones and the smaller dogs will stand 
round licking their chops waiting patiently to take what is 
left. But if the world of industry is a family of children, 
with one Father who is in heaven, utilizing the resources 
placed at their disposal by his wise beneficence; and if 
that great truth can be made to sink into their souls, 
maintaining there a sound principle of life, there is hope 
that the strong will joyously bear the infirmities of the 
weak and not merely please themselves. There is hope that 
the principle of consideration for one another shall become 
our Master and all of us be brethren in the practice of that 



388 THE MASTER'S WAY 

method. And that state of life can only come from a new 
disposition within. 

The Master told the Pharisees that. It was not what 
they wanted to hear. They wanted the exact date of the 
overthrow of the Roman Rule and the ushering in of a 
Hebrew Theocracy. Their minds were intent upon the 
outer machinery of life to which they looked for well- 
being. It seemed to them a mockery of their hopes to be 
told that the kingdom of God if it was anywhere was 
within men. They were eager to see something cataclysmic 
and catastrophic (to use two very large and unmanageable 
words), and they could not readily conceive of the advance 
of a spiritual empire whose action was like leaven. 

Then he turned to his disciples and said, " The days will 
come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the 
Son of Man and ye shall not see it." And he pictured the 
preoccupation of men with external things reaching such a 
pass as to entirely exclude interest in things spiritual. 
As it was in the time of Noah — " They were eating, they 
were drinking; they were marrying, they were being given 
in marriage (the succession of imperfect tenses indicating 
how they were wholly given up to external things), until 
the day Noah entered the ark. So also it shall be in the 
days of the Son of Man." Jesus foretold that same preoc- 
cupation with the external to the defeat of his own spiri- 
tual purpose for the race. 

It was the same in the days of Lot. They ate, they 
drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, 
as if these material concerns were of the highest moment 
and of eternal duration, until it rained fire and brimstone 
from heaven and destroyed them all. 

The naming of these two great catastrophes, the deluge 
and the destruction of Sodom, in connection with this warn- 
ing as to a sinful preoccupation with external interests 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 389 

seems to point to some sudden catastrophe which Jesus was 
foretelling. In the parallel passage in Matthew it is easy 
to connect many of his words with the siege of Jerusalem 
and the flight of the people. But this event would hardly 
throw light upon the diverse fate of the " two men in one 
bed," or the " two women grinding at the mill," or of the 
" two men in the field." 

"It is not easy to interpret this series of warning ut- 
terances with one consistent application throughout," 
says W. S. Adeney. " The idea running through them all 
is that of ' the revelation of the Son of Man.' When that 
occurs these things will happen. But possibly it may occur 
in various ways. . . . The language seems to be of a deeper 
and more mysterious character referring to some greater 
advent of Christ for the rescue of his people when destruc- 
tion is to fall upon those who have not heeded his warn- 
ings. Possibly Luke has strung together sayings of Jesus 
on this subject uttered on various occasions and with 
various immediate bearings, some designed to give specific 
advice for the time of the siege of Jerusalem, others of 
wider and more general application to the discriminating 
judgment that awaits all souls." 

It is to be noted that the preoccupation of those who 
had become so worldly and self-indulgent as to lose all 
interest in the advance of a spiritual kingdom was with 
things which are in themselves not only innocent, but 
praiseworthy. It is meet and right and the bounden duty 
of men to eat and drink, buy and sell, plant and build, 
marry and rear families. The warning of Jesus is uttered 
against that utter absorption of interest in the mere external 
values and satisfactions to be found in these activities 
which precludes the seeking and finding of an eternal king- 
dom of value by the nobler use we make of these things 
external. 



390 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" Remember Lot's wife." The homely reference is to 
the shortsighted action of one whose reluctance to sub- 
ordinate her attachment to things external in the face of a 
supreme duty to escape from the fearful judgment which 
was overtaking the foul wickedness of the community in 
which she had dwelt, cost her her life. Remember the folly 
of those unhappy souls whose fond attachment to things 
perishable has cut them off from the possession of treasures 
which endure. 

In that primitive picture of moral processes we read that 
11 Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of 
the Lord God among the trees of the garden." The garden 
was good, a place of the Lord's own planting, and the trees 
formed an essential part of it. But somehow the man and 
the woman allowed the lovely trees which sheltered, shaded 
and fed them to obscure the God who had given them the 
garden. "The Great Lord save our civilization and save 
us from the power of our civilization, keeping us where we 
can see his face and hear his voice in spite of the trees." 



LXV 

THE FRIEND OF THOSE WHO HAD FAILED 

Luke 18:9-15; 19:1-10 

Here were two men on their way to church. When the 
service was over one man had gotten something out of it, 
the other nothing at all. They both went into the temple 
to pray, and they both prayed — each man brought forth 
a prayer after his kind. And when they had finished their 
devotions, one man had been blessed, the other was un- 
blessed. 

The whole difference lay in the line of approach. The 
temple was the same solid stone fact for both men and the 
temple service with its lessons and its prayers made identi- 
cally the same appeal to both. But one man stood well 
up in front, pluming himself on his virtues, thanking God 
that he was not as other men are, while the other saw 
nothing, felt nothing, mentioned nothing but his own sense 
of moral failure. 

One man bragged about his virtues; the other begged 
forgiveness for his sins. One man trusted in himself that 
he was righteous; the other trusted in God that he would 
be merciful. One man " pointed with pride," as they say 
in political conventions, to his moral achievements; the 
other " viewed with alarm " his own deficiencies. And the 
man whose mood is indicated in the second half of each 
of these antitheses went down to his house justified rather 
than the other. 

11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself." 
The whole transaction was entirely subjective. He never 

391 



392 THE MASTER'S WAY 

got beyond himself nor above himself in the movements of 
his soul. His prayer did not rise to the ceiling — it did not 
rise any higher than to the top of his own swollen head. 
It was indeed a bit of self-congratulatory communion 
" with himself." 

The Pharisee, like all egotists, was expert in his use of 
the capital I. "I am not as other men are. I fast twice 
in the week. I give tithes." I, I, I! The big, haughty 
pronoun, first person, singular number, provocative mood, 
marched at the head of his prayer like a drum-major 
with bearskin and big baton. How far he was from the 
attitude of prayer! How far he was from the Kingdom of 
God! 

And what a wretched ladder he employed in climbing 
up into his fat complacency! " Thank God I am not as 
other men are." What other men? " Unjust, extortioners, 
adulterers." The lowest, meanest men he could name — 
men who had been robbing their fellows and debauching 
families. It must have been gratifying to feel that he had 
not been beaten in a moral race with such rascals! 

How lifelike is the picture! When some meager soul 
seeks to justify his own failure in not having openly pro- 
fessed his faith in Christ and assumed his rightful obliga- 
tion as a member of the Christian Church, he wilLoften 
say, " I feel that I can be just as good outside of the 
church as some church members are." And when you in- 
quire as to the terms of his comparison you find that he is 
not measuring his spiritual achievements by those of the 
active and normal Christian. He has picked out some poor 
runt of a church member who never succeeded in measur- 
ing up to anything like the ordinary standard of Christian 
life and service. " Thank God I am not an extortioner or 
an adulterer" — what a ground for boastful complacency! 

The publican with downcast eye and burdened heart 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 393 

smote upon his breast, saying, " God be merciful to me — 
a sinner." And he v/ent out blessed rather than the other. 
Complacency is the foe of aspiration while the sense of 
need prompts the man who is honest with himself to aspire 
and to strive. Appetite is a sign of health. Blessed are 
they that hunger after righteousness — they shall be filled. 

But there was another publican who came upon the 
scene at this time. The second one is not the storied 
publican of the familiar parable but a real publican in 
the every-day life of the city of Jericho. And in this case 
as in the other, salvation came to the man's house and 
to his heart because the door was open. 

In this second passage the Master was dining out. He 
was dining with a rich man. He had invited himself be- 
cause the rich man would never have thought of inviting 
a noted teacher of religion to his home. The rich man had 
a good home, plenty to eat, and would have been glad to 
exercise the grace of hospitality, but no respectable person 
in Jericho would accept his invitations. 

The rich man was a publican, that is to say, a tax col- 
lector for the hated Roman government. The tax collec- 
tor in any country is not likely to be as popular as Santa 
Claus. But in Palestine, where the taxes were " farmed " 
and a deal of graft and corruption was mixed up with the 
business of collecting revenue, the tax collector stood so- 
cially about where a gambler or a rum seller stands with us. 
He was ostracized. He could not even go to church with- 
out incurring the risk of hearing some Pharisee say, "Thank 
God I am not as other men are, unjust, extortioners, 
adulterers, or even as this publican." 

It meant much, therefore, when Jesus stopped, looked 
up into the tree, uttered the tax collector's name in tones 
of respect and suggested that he would like to dine with 
him. Zaccheus made haste, came down and received him 



394 THE MASTER'S WAY 

joyfully. He walked down the street with the Master at 
his side as one who dreamed. He had bread to eat which 
his hungry heart had known not of for many a day. 

The people murmured. " Gone to be the guest of a man 
that is a sinner." They insinuated that " there must be a 
screw loose somewhere" — a man is known by the com- 
pany he keeps! They felt that if Jesus were a prophet 
he would not have passed by all the leading church 
members in Jericho in order to be the guest of a 
tax collector. 

The Master heard their murmuring but was undisturbed. 
He was always ready to pay the full price of doing good in 
his own way. There never was an hour from the time 
when he faced the devil in the wilderness until he hung upon 
the cross when he was not willing to be wounded for the 
transgressions of others, to be bruised by their iniquities 
that by his stripes they might be healed. He was ready to 
incur suspicion, ridicule, hatred in order to put himself in 
open alliance with the better nature of that man whom he 
would help. 

The Master saw within the figure of that hated tax collec- 
tor another and a better man. Zaccheus, a publican and a 
sinner, a grafter and a miser! But Zaccheus, also poten- 
tially a son of Abraham, a child of the Eternal, a man 
destined to have his part in that moral movement in which 
all the nations of the earth are being blessed. 

The man within the man! The capacity in waiting, the 
potential goodness, temporarily overborne by the load of 
wrongdoing, the raw material for something high and fine 
in quality — it was that which Christ saw and addressed as 
he sat at meat in the house of the publican! It is the 
divine way. The Almighty deals with us habitually, not in 
terms of our present moral achievement, but with reference 
to those latent energies awaiting his touch, those hidden 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 395 

capacities for spiritual advance, which he recognizes in 
every man. 

Here within this blundering fellow whose selfishness and 
conceit make him so repellent is another fellow of a finer 
type! Hidden away in that sullen lump of flesh is a real 
human being waiting for the right touch. It is one of the 
glories of our Christian religion that it does make silk 
purses out of sows' ears — even out of such a sow's ear 
as that. 

If that very man could be gotten out from under the 
cover of his own conceit where he could see that there are 
stars in the sky, where he could feel the tug and lift of 
God's interest in him, where he could view himself as he is 
and as he might be, his repentance would be like the break- 
ing up of a great deep. He might speedily be started on 
that line of moral advance where he would wear that " new 
name " which denotes each man's capacity for qualities 
now in abeyance. 

When Jesus by his words and by the power of fellowship 
at the table of Zaccheus had awakened in the soul of the 
man desire and resolve for better things, he promptly in- 
dicated where those better impulses should find expression. 
We can judge of what the Master said by the reaction 
produced in Zaccheus. The man began to get up at the 
very point where he had fallen down. 

The two most serious faults in the life of Zaccheus had 
been these, he was dishonest and he was stingy. Now the 
first two words on the lips of this awakened man are 
" Restore " and " Give." If I have taken anything from 
any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. The 
half of my goods I give to the poor. 

"Restore — Give." New words they were on the lips 
of Zaccheus! Buy, sell, get, gain, hold, enjoy — these 
words he knew. He could utter them glibly and act upon 



396 THE MASTER'S WAY 

them. But " restore " and " give " almost stuck in his 
throat like Macbeth's " Amen." He had to clear his 
throat twice to get them out, but out they came, an- 
nouncing the new principle of action which had come that 
day to his house. 

In theological phrase we call that action " repentance." 
It is a costly thing, as you see at a glance in the case of 
this rich man. Tears are cheap — as cheap as rainwater. 
Remorse is cheap — it may be only the discomfort and 
humiliation a bad man suffers in being found out. But 
repentance is more precious than diamonds and rubies. 
It means an about face, the cutting out of evil habits, 
the cleaning up of the life, the facing toward the light with 
one's trust in Him with whom there is no darkness at all. 
When this process is in operation in any life one can see 
salvation coming to that house in power and great glory. 

This newness of life in Zaccheus began about noon when 
the two men sat at meat. It grew rapidly. It went on 
adding cubit after cubit to its stature until before sundown 
it was showing that sturdy strength which enabled it to do 
the deeds of a moral giant. When newness of life rises 
rapidly into such strength as to restore fourfold for every 
penny taken wrongfully and bestow half of all it has upon 
the poor, we know that it is a plant of the Lord's own 
planting. 



LXVI 
THE PARABLE OF THE HOURS 
Matt. 20 : 1-16 

Here is a lesson clothed in economic terms and actions 
so eccentric as to cut straight across the grain of what we 
esteem right method! The working day when Christ spoke 
extended from six a.m. to six p.m. This householder 
hired men early in the morning to work in his vineyard. 
He hired others at nine o'clock (" the third hour ") and 
others at noon, others at three o'clock and a final group 
at five o'clock in the afternoon, having then only one hour 
to work before quitting time. And when he came to settle 
with them he paid them all the same wage. He gave 
them a shilling apiece all around, to those who had worked 
the twelve hours through and to those who had toiled but 
a single hour. 

It was an odd thing to do. It had the appearance of 
injustice — had not the men who set to work in the early 
morning a right to murmur, saying, " These last have 
wrought but one hour and thou hast made them equal unto 
us who have borne the heat and burden of the day." 
The action of the employer would surely provoke discon- 
tent and become subversive of discipline in the work of the 
vineyard. How long could a modern factory run with 
such fantastic methods of remuneration? 

The parable also puts into the mouth of the employer 
sentiments which seem to us reprehensible. " Is it not 
lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? " What 
I will? — emphatically no! Where a man wills to do that 

397 



398 THE MASTER'S WAY 

which is whimsical or unjust or cruel ''with his own" 
the economic rights of the community are invaded. When 
the early Christians were in the full enjoyment of a Pente- 
costal blessing, filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking with 
other tongues and acting from other motives than those 
which ruled the hearts of their neighbors, " No man said 
that aught of the things that he possessed were his own " 
to do with as he would. We cannot accept such an im- 
moral statement — " Is it not lawful to do what I will with 
mine own? " 

But the Master was not teaching economics — he was 
teaching morals and inculcating those moods which bear 
upon the securing and the maturing of the right type of 
spiritual life. And when we come to study this eccentric 
picture of a certain economic transaction we find that it 
does throw a flood of light upon the question of motive. 

' The Parable of the Pounds illustrates the proposition 
that where ability is equal, quantity determines relative 
merit. In this parable each servant received one pound, 
but the quantity of work done varied and the reward 
varied accordingly. The Parable of the Talents illustrates 
the proposition that when ability varies, then not the abso- 
lute quantity of work done but the ratio of the achieve- 
ment to the ability of the worker determines the reward. 
One man received five and gained five, one received two 
and gained two — the two were held to be equal in merit 
and were equally rewarded. The Parable of the Hours em- 
phasizes the supreme value of motive as a factor in deter- 
mining moral value. The small quantity of work done in 
a right spirit was of greater value than a large quantity 
done in a wrong spirit." 

The first men were paid last and were paid least be- 
cause they went to work in a bargaining spirit. ' The 
householder went out early in the morning to hire laborers 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 399 

and when he had agreed with them for a shilling (Am. 
R. V.) a day, he sent them into his vineyard." They had 
made a definite bargain with their employer and he natu- 
rally expected them to stand to it. But when he hired 
the other groups of men no bargain was made. He simply 
said to each group at the third hour or at the sixth hour 
or at the eleventh hour, " Go ye also into the vineyard and 
whatsoever is right I will give you." 

And they went with no specific wage scale signed up in 
advance. They went trusting that he would indeed do 
" what was right." They went as Abraham went, not 
knowing exactly whither, but moving in the spirit of moral 
faith. And when their reward came they received much 
more in proportion to the investment of time and strength 
than did the men who had bargained for their reward. 

The quality of motive as well as " labor-time " is noted 
and rated by the Master of all the higher values. The 
men in the parable who sold their service for so much re- 
ceived exactly what they bargained for — no injustice was 
done to them. The men who went actively to work in the 
spirit of trust, leaving the result to the wise judgment and 
honest heart of him whom they served, received vastly 
more in proportion to the effort expended. They were 
serving one who looketh not merely on the outward per- 
formance but upon the heart which holds the motive lying 
back of the performance. The spirit of the hireling is not 
the spirit which comes in for the more generous recogni- 
tion at the hands of him unto whom all hearts are open. 

If the main purpose of this householder had been to 
secure the largest possible amount of work for the expendi- 
ture of a certain amount of money, then his method in 
dealing with these laborers engaged at the various hours in 
the day for longer and shorter periods of service would 
have been altogether foolish. But if the main interest of 



400 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the householder like the One whom he here represents was 
the development of a higher type of man in his sen-ice, 
then the generous attention given to the question of motive 
and the generous reward bestowed upon right motive are 
abundantly justified. 

11 The method of the householder in treating all alike, 
giving to every workman a living, is that which obtains 
today in the foreign missionary service. The American 
Board," says one of the secretaries, " provides the same 
for all its missionaries — to each a living. The Board 
undertakes merely to maintain the man, to see that he has 
enough to live on, no more, no less. Hence in each field 
the salary of the new recruit and the veteran is on the 
same basis; the ablest leader and the ordinary workman 
receive alike. Their true reward is found in the joy of the 
employ, the success of the enterprise, in having a share, 
larger or less, in the common undertaking. The hero of 
some mission field, its pioneer, its founder, its broad- 
visioned, strong-willed builder, is thus in vital comradeship 
with an inconspicuous teacher in some school established 
long after the foundations were laid in his more strenuous 
day." 

The parable was called out by Peter's question, " Lo, 
we have left all and followed thee. What, then, shall we 
have? " Peter was pluming himself on the sacrifices he had 
made for the coming Kingdom. He would be very grate- 
ful if the Lord would give him a bit of inside information 
as to the reward awaiting those who had come in on the 
ground floor of that sen-ice to which the Master had called 
them. 

The very mood which prompted Peter's thrifty question 
would vitiate the whole sen-ice he might render unless it 
were corrected. In that mood Peter was not sen-ing the 
Lord at all — he was simply doing a little business with 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 401 

the Lord, swapping so much self-sacrifice for certain valued 
returns. We have left all — what shall we have then! 
How hardly do many men of Peter's race recover from the 
attitude where their eyes are solely on the main chance! 

The Master's reply to Peter indicated that all such 
calculations were headed wrong. There would come what 
Mozley called " the reversal of human judgment." Many 
that were esteemed last would be seen to be first and the 
first last. The small sacrifice made in the right spirit would 
have more value in the eyes of him who watched both 
the wealthy and the widow as they cast their offerings 
into the treasury, than the great sacrifices made in the 
bargaining spirit which Peter evinced. 

"The scrutiny of the last day by discovering the irrel- 
evant material in men's goodness may reduce to a shadow 
much exalted earthly character. Men are made up of 
professions, gifts and talents and also of themselves, but 
all so mixed together that we cannot separate one element 
from another. Another day must show what the moral 
substance is and what is only the brightness of gifts. 
But if there be a reversal of human judgment for evil, 
there will also be reversal of it for good — the solid work 
which has gone on in secret under common exteriors will 
then spring into light and come out in a glorious aspect." 

We are not competent to compare the sacrifices we make 
and the service we render with the service and the sacrifice 
of others (as Peter was undertaking to do) in order to 
arrive at some just appraisal of the reward in store. It is 
not in this mood that men may enter the vineyard of the 
Lord and achieve for him and for themselves those high 
ends he has in view. He seeks the investment of each life 
through love rather than for the sake of a stipulated reward. 
He would deal with us as sons and not as slaves, sharing 
with us the burden of the establishment of his Kingdom 



402 THE MASTER'S WAY 

upon the earth and sharing with us its glorious and perma- 
nent rewards. 

The parable is not meant to give encouragement to the 
thought of making a late entrance into the vineyard of 
service. The men who set to work at the eleventh hour 
entered at the first chance which came. " Why stand ye 
here idle? " They were able to reply truthfully, " Because 
no man has hired us." The moment the gate of service 
opened before them they entered it with eagerness. 

Why do you waste your day? Why do you waste an- 
other single hour of it if the call of service has indeed 
sounded in your ears? If you will hear and heed his 
" Go ye into the vineyard/' you will find in the great out- 
come that " whatsoever is right " will mean to you nothing 
less than a choral entrance into the joy of your Lord. 



LXVII 
THE VARYING USE OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY 

Luke 19 : 11-27 

The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the 
Pounds are so much alike in form that many people have 
regarded them as the varying traditions of a single ut- 
terance of the Master. But the differences outweigh the 
resemblances. The talent was a large sum of money, the 
pound a very small sum. In the former parable the in- 
equality of human endowment is emphasized, in the latter 
all start on an equal footing. 

In the former parable each man received " according to 
his several ability." In the latter all received the same 
original endowment and the same opportunity for the 
exercise of that ability, but they made varying use of it. 
Where ability is equal, then the mere quantity of achieve- 
ment will determine the relative merit. But where, as in 
the Parable of the Talents, the ability is unequal, then the 
ratio of achievement must determine the relative merit. 

Here, then, are the two main lessons from each of these 
passages — men are judged according to their achievements 
in the light of the means at their disposal. Men are judged 
by the use they make of those similar means which are at 
the disposal of us all. 

The particular occasion when the Parable of the Pounds 
was spoken is to be noted. " He spake a parable because 
he was nigh to Jerusalem and because they thought that 
the Kingdom of God should immediately appear." Im- 
mediately! The direction their Master was taking in going 

403 



404 THE MASTER'S WAY 

up to Jerusalem, the popular enthusiasm which attended 
his progress, and their own personal ambitions had led the 
disciples to cherish high hopes that he was about to set up 
his temporal kingdom at the capital city of his country. 
They could almost see themselves sitting at the right 
hand and the left hand of high privilege. 

Jesus therefore told them this story about a nobleman 
who was about to go on a long journey into a far country. 
He indicated a period of time wherein men should trade 
with the capital given them so as to make an increase in 
some cases of nine hundred per cent. It would only be 
" after a long time " that the lord of those servants would 
come and reckon with them. Jesus was thus adjusting the 
over-anxious expectations of his eager-hearted followers to 
the real facts of the situation. 

The nobleman called his ten servants and gave them a 
pound apiece all around. It was only an insignificant 
sum, a little over fifteen dollars in our money. The Master 
was teaching his disciples not to despise the day of small 
things. Then the nobleman said to each one, " Do busi- 
ness herewith till I come." He would test the fidelity and 
the capacity of each man by ascertaining how much he 
could gain during a given period " by trading." 

When the day of reckoning came, it was found that the 
first man by the wise and active use of his powers had 
multiplied his original ability by ten. He was rewarded 
by his Master in word and in deed. " Well done, thou 
good servant! Thou hast been faithful in a very little, 
have thou authority over ten cities." The scope of his 
opportunity for the exercise of his augmented powers is 
increased with the increase of the powers themselves. 

The second man reported that he had multiplied his 
original endowment by five. His lower achievement with 
a similar endowment received a less hearty recognition, 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 405 

but he was given authority over five cities. He was given 
an enlarged opportunity commensurate with the increased 
competence he had been able to show. 

The third man came in a fearful, grudging spirit, excus- 
ing his own lack of performance by accusing the dispo- 
sition of another. " I feared thee because thou art an 
austere man, taking up what thou didst not lay down and 
reaping where thou didst not sow. Here is thy pound, 
which I have kept laid up in a napkin." 

Here we have a man devoid of that quality which makes 
possible the ventures of faith! He was timidly and nar- 
rowly bent on not doing any harm in the world. His life 
was coldly negative rather than vigorously wicked. He had 
done nothing scandalous. He had not wasted a penny 
of his pound in riotous living. He had done nothing at all. 
He had laid himself up in fruitless inaction. In the day of 
judgment there he was, no more of him and no less than 
on the day when the lord of values had intrusted him with 
the same original endowment bestowed upon the man who, 
as a result of his policy of self-realization along the higher 
levels, finds himself with authority over ten cities. 

In the Parable of the Talents it is the man who re- 
ceived the one talent rather than those who received the 
larger measures of ability who made no use of his chance. 
The man who did nothing at all for his master was the 
one whose share of ability was most modest. " This is 
the peculiar temptation of the man who has little ability 
and sullenly retires from a service in which he cannot out- 
shine and play a conspicuous part. Because he cannot do 
as much as he would like to do, he will not do as much as 
he can." 

How many men are depressed by the apparent insignifi- 
cance of their powers! They would endow colleges and sup- 
port their own missionaries in the foreign field if they were 



406 



THE MASTER'S WAY 



millionaires — so they say — but they neglect those lesser 
deeds of love which lie within their compass. They would 
undertake the work of personal evangelism and strive to 
bring others to Christ if they were sure that they possessed 
as much ability along this line as Dwight L. Moody or 
Henry Drummond, but they are reluctant to speak the 
word to some neighbor which might set his life in a new 
attitude toward Christ! They would prophesy in Christ's 
name and in his name cast out devils and in his name do 
many wonderful works if they were only sure in advance 
that people would be astonished at their efforts, but they 
fail to bring forth that measure of good fruit appropriate 
to the ability given them that men might know that they 
are faithful disciples of the Lord. 

Human life is not all level prairie like Kansas and Ne- 
braska. It is a land of hills and of valleys. In the distribu- 
tion of personal ability there are elevations and depres- 
sions as one's eye sweeps across the surface noting the 
varying levels of individual endowment. And these varia- 
tions are as much a natural feature of the situation in 
human experience as in the topography of a country. 
It is not for the man depressed by the consciousness of his 
own limitations to say in surly fashion to the Giver of all 
good gifts, great and small, " Here is thy pound." 

There comes a swift process of judgment upon willful 
inaction. ' Take from him the pound and give it to him 
that hath ten pounds. To him that hath shall be given. 
From him that hath not shall be taken away." The law 
is self-executing, the process of judgment is automatic. 
The man who buries his talent, loses it. 

How many fields of action bear their somber testimony 
to this principle of judgment! The unused muscle shrinks 
and dwindles until in place of a useful function there is 
only a rudimentary remnant. The fish in the Mammoth 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 407 

Cave having no use for eyes in their unlighted habitat 
lose the power of sight. The man who disdains the minis- 
try of beauty, of music, of religion, becomes atrophied 
in those powers which formerly caused him to react under 
the higher forms of stimulus. To him that hath, more is 
given. From him who uses not, even that which he had is 
taken away. No man need run toward his doom in order 
to be doomed. Let him but stand still, leaving his higher 
self unworked, and by that very sloth he is hastening swiftly 
to his doom. 

"The risk of the five-talent man is his conceit; the risk 
of the one-talent man is his hopelessness. Why should this 
insignificant bubble on the great stream of life inflate 
itself with self-importance? But when we look at life 
religiously, the doctrine of the trust redeems it from in- 
significance. You have not much, but what you have is 
essential to the whole. The lighthouse-keeper on his rock 
sits in solitude and watches his little flame. Why does he 
not let it die away as other lights in the distance die when 
the night comes on? Because it is not his light. He is its 
keeper, not its owner. The great Power that watches that 
stormy coast has set him there and he must be true." 

The inconspicuous service rendered by the man who has 
received but a single pound or been intrusted with a single 
talent is lifted at once into a higher meaning when it is 
viewed as a trust. And it is a tragic thing for any life to 
suddenly realize that having been commissioned from on 
high to perform a certain inconsiderable part in the fulfill- 
ment of a vast, far-reaching, divine plan, he has thrown 
away his chance of honor by wrapping his modest abilities 
in the concealment of a napkin. 

If there is in the commercial world " the law of diminish- 
ing returns," there is in all the fields of human interest 
" the law of increasing returns." When a man has amassed 



408 THE MASTER'S WAY 

even a modest amount of working capital, he finds as he 
wisely invests it, that the more it grows the more easily 
and rapidly it grows. In the recovery of health when once 
the crisis is passed, surplus energy seems to be funded and 
the old vigor comes back in a kind of geometrical progres- 
sion. When a man has written a popular book which 
almost everybody reads, quite everybody is ready to read 
the next book he puts out. To him that hath, it shall be 
given. 

' Wherefore study to be quiet and to do your own busi- 
ness and to work with your own hands that ye may walk 
honestly and have lack of nothing." To have tried and 
failed brings no disgrace if one's best powers went into the 
high effort. But never to have tried at all is shame un- 
speakable. " Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season 
we shall reap if we faint not." 



LXVIII 

THE ABUSE OF HIGH PRIVILEGE 

Matt. 21 : 33-46 

This is a parable of warning and judgment. Its sharp 
ringer points straight at certain well-known sins. When 
it was originally uttered the chief priests and the scribes 
felt the sting of its application. They said, " He means 
us." They would have laid hands on Christ forthwith 
had they not " feared the people." 

In an unusual degree every stroke of the Master's brush 
in painting this picture tells its own story. The man who 
planted the vineyard represents the God of Israel. The 
vineyard itself stood for the religious privileges of the 
Hebrew nation. The husbandmen were the Jews them- 
selves. The servants sent out were the prophets. The 
fruit expected by the lord of the vineyard was that loyal, 
obedient service which should grow naturally out of relig- 
ious privilege. The shameful beating and wounding of the 
messengers sent was the rough treatment meted out by 
the Jews to the accredited representatives of the divine 
purpose. " Which of the prophets did not your fathers 
persecute? " 

The son sent at the last to these ungrateful men saw 
Christ. " When the fullness of time came, God sent his 
Son." The crucifixion, already casting its dark shadow 
across the Master's path, was indicated in that the wicked 
men " cast him forth out of the vineyard and killed him." 
They refused him a place in the vineyard of their religious 
• system. They put him to death for daring to enter it 

409 



410 THE MASTER'S WAY 

with his Messianic claims. The final giving of the vine- 
yard to others foretells the choosing of the Gentiles for 
spiritual leadership and the lapse of the Jews from the 
right of the line which they had held so long in the relig- 
ious advance of the world. 

The terms are now defined — what do they teach? 
While the parable was directed first at the unresponsive 
Jews of Christ's time, it points also at the moral delin- 
quency of all those who follow in their train repeating their 
sins. The fateful, tragic history of the Hebrew nation is 
the story of many a religiously reared man and of many 
a favored nation. 

Here in the very forefront of our own national existence 
stands a rich vineyard of high religious privilege! The 
Lord himself has " planted a vineyard and set a hedge 
about it and digged a winepress in it and built a tower." 
The detailed preparation suggests the contrast between 
the painstaking, generous spirit of the lord of the vine- 
yard and the ungrateful, rebellious conduct of the husband- 
men. God has put within our reach all the necessary 
means for a rich return of spiritual values. 

If the awful penalty pronounced in this passage fell upon 
the unfaithful Hebrews, " How shall we escape if we neg- 
lect so great salvation? ' The Jews had simply the Old 
Testament — we have the Old and the Xew in all their 
foretelling and fulfilling completeness. The Jews saw 
what Christ had been doing for three years — we see what 
he has been doing for nineteen hundred years. They 
walked within "the shadow of things to come" — we are 
enjoying the good things. Think not that those men who 
refused the claim of the Lord of the vineyard by rejecting 
Christ were sinners above all men! Except we repent, we 
shall all likewise perish. 

The lord is patient — he offers these privileges and then 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 411 

goes " into another country for a long time." There is a 
period of forbearance and suspended judgment. Pay day 
does not always come the following Saturday night nor are 
the books of the Recording Angel balanced on the first day 
of each month. 

But patience does not mean indifference. The fact 
that this vineyard of privilege was intrusted to certain 
husbandmen is not forgotten. The lord will inquire strictly 
into the use made of it. " At the season he sent unto the 
husbandmen a servant that they should give him of the 
fruit of the vineyard." Then another! Then yet another! 
Repeated demands were made for that which was due. 
Religious privileges are meant to produce righteousness, 
unselfish service, ripe and generous returns in all good 
living. The succession of messengers each one calling for 
" Fruit " indicates the divine insistence upon a proper 
return for the effort made on our behalf. Privilege spells 
responsibility. 

The parable indicates in effective phrase how men are 
treating their opportunities. Here is a man who is angry 
because he is asked to give to some charity — he " beats " 
the request! Here is one who is indignant that any one 
should speak to him personally about the duty of re- 
pentance and faith toward God — he handles that appeal 
" shamefully " and sends it away " empty." Here is 
another who, closely urged to enter upon the life of Chris- 
tian devotion, " wounds " the one who made the appeal. 
He utters an ill-bred refusal and " casts him forth." The 
hardness of men's hearts becomes perplexing — " The Lord 
of the vineyard says, What shall I do? " 

He decides to make his supreme appeal — "I will send 
my beloved Son." One comes who can say, " He that 
hath seen Me hath seen the Father." He can say, " No 
man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom the 



412 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Son will reveal him." This supreme manifestation of the 
divine concern on man's behalf will surely touch the human 
heart. It was a natural expectation which uttered itself — 
11 They will reverence my Son." 

But moral disobedience had become chronic. Hardening 
their hearts against the minor appeals of duty had cal- 
loused the whole moral nature. The parable records " an 
ascending scale of atrocities," for wrongdoing is cumulative. 
When a man does one evil deed, it becomes easier to do 
the next one. When a boy has stolen a nickel, he has 
removed one of the barriers between his conscience and the 
act of stealing the larger sum. When a soul resists the 
appeal of the Spirit once, he may be sure that the next 
appeal will not be so strongly felt. 

There is a certain fearful fascination about the psychology 
of one's course in wrongdoing. There is a certain enlarge- 
ment of dominant traits and a tendency to fixity in char- 
acter. The harsh treatment given the subordinate servants 
paved the way for the ultimate slaying of the Son. The 
wicked husbandmen had been doing wrong until murder 
itself seemed natural and easy. 

We are amazed at the shortsighted, impotent chain of 
reasoning into which those men fell in that moral blindness 
induced by persistent disobedience. They said when the 
lord of the vineyard sent to them his son: "This is the 
heir! Let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours. 
And they cast him forth out of the vineyard and killed 
lm. 

There are men who actually think that when they have 
numbed the spiritual sense by disobedience or disuse, 
they are entirely relieved from the disturbing sense of re- 
ligious obligation. If they have silenced for an hour the 
voice of the Spirit, they feel quite free to go cheerily about 
their affairs in open ungodliness. They vainly imagine that 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 413 

if the Bibles were all burned up, and all preaching of the 
gospel were stopped, they would feel serene. 

But back of all Bibles and sermons, back of all personal 
entreaty and spiritual appeal, is God himself who has to 
be reckoned with. However we may temporarily hide our 
heads in the sand, we must finally stand before him to give 
an account of the deeds done in the body whether they be 
good or bad. The Lord of the vineyard will show what 
fruit we have returned him by our use of the privilege 
accorded us. He will make manifest the attitude we have 
taken toward his Son. And if we have indeed " cast him 
out " of our lives, we shall find ourselves cast out. 

The problem of privilege along many lines is a vital 
one. The wealth of the world is in the hands of a small 
percentage of the entire population. How will they treat 
the appeal coming up from the plain people and coming 
down from God who is no respecter of persons? How will 
they meet the demands for a more democratic spirit in the 
control of the great industries, for a more equitable division 
of the good things created by the joint efforts of brain and 
brawn, for a more intelligent and conscientious regard for 
the human values at stake in this huge business of produc- 
ing wealth? 

If these men of privilege " beat " that appeal, if they 
" treat shamefully " the gropings of the common people 
after a life more worthy to be called human, if they " cast 
out " the protests made against conditions intolerable to 
the awakened self-respect of the toilers, they may know of 
a surety that they will hasten the day when their rich 
vineyard of privilege will be " taken away from them " 
and be given over to husbandmen possessed of that social 
habit of mind which will render the lord of the finer values 
the fruit he demands. 

The cultured men and women who have enjoyed the 



414 THE MASTER'S WAY 

benefits of college training stand in a fair garden of privilege 
What will they do with it? If the fortunate individual 
stands aloof from the exacting demands of the common life, 
pluming himself on his own admirable qualities and scorn- 
ing the " unwashed," let him know that he too is in peril. 
The debt of privilege, whatever form it may take, must be 
paid in coin of the realm. And the only coin acceptable 
in the discharge of that obligation is to be found in those 
forms of service where the man gives not his gift alone 
but himself as well. 

This principle lay at the foundation of the life of Jesus. 
He was rich in personal endowment and in high privilege, 
yet for our sakes he became poor that by his self-sacrifice 
many might be enriched. Knowing that the Father had 
given all things into his hands, he girded himself and washed 
the disciples' feet. This underlying principle of spiritual 
advance is a stone which many builders have rejected, but 
in the rightly ordered life it becomes the head of the 
corner. 



LXIX 

THE DOOM OF THE UNFIT 

Matt. 22 : 1-14 

Here in these chapters we find a succession of " Parables 
of Judgment." The fateful events which prefaced Calvary 
were near. The blindness of the Jewish people which led 
them to reject those principles which have become the 
head of the corner in the spiritual structure they were set 
to rear became more and more evident. And these suc- 
cessive warnings are like the solemn striking of the clock at 
midnight when Macbeth was plotting the murder of the 
king — a warning which that guilty man also failed to 
heed. 

The divine offer of mercy was like the action of a king 
who made a marriage feast for his son. He sent his ser- 
vants to call them that were bidden to the marriage, but 
the invited guests insolently refused to come. He sent yet 
other servants, humbling himself to the point of extolling 
the quality of the entertainment provided that reluctant 
guests might be induced to come. " Oxen and fatlings are 
killed and all things are ready — come to the marriage 
feast." 

"But they made light of it" — they treated it as a 
matter of no consequence. One man busied himself on 
his farm and another in his store and others laid hold of 
the servants who had brought the added summons and 
treated them shamefully. The preoccupation with lesser 
things blinded these men to the supreme importance of the 
one vital interest in that situation. 

415 



416 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" As it was then, so it is now. One man goes to his 
farm, preoccupied by his daily care. Another is the slave 
of his business. A third finds the king's summons incon- 
sistent with his own mean desires and will not even listen 
to the messenger — he lays hold on him and kills him. 
The preoccupation of the mind by routine, the overwhelm- 
ing pressure of one's business and the conscious inconsis- 
tency of one's own way of life with the way of God — these 
three habits of mind still make light of the king's message. 
Possession goes its way to its farm; commercialism hides 
among its merchandise and conscious unworthiness hates 
the very reminder of God's intention and strikes God's 
messengers dead at its feet." 

This insolent action was resented by the king. He 
" was wroth. He sent his armies and destroyed those 
murderers and burned their city." The parable of warning 
was addressed primarily to the Jews and as the solemn 
words fell from the lips of the Messiah they were rejecting, 
they might have heard the mutterings of a coming storm 
of divine judgment. The overthrow of Jerusalem, with 
all the attendant horrors of outrage, slaughter and burning, 
was already on the way. Truly his blood was to be upon 
them and upon their children! 

The teaching of the parable thus far runs parallel with 
the similar parable of " The Great Supper," recorded in 
Luke. There also the invited guests showed themselves 
heedless of the generous good will of the One who had bid- 
den them to a feast. " They all with one consent began to 
make excuse," one begging off that he might view a piece 
of land he had bought, another pleading an engagement 
to try a yoke of oxen he had purchased and a third insisting 
that his wife had prior claims upon his time, preventing 
his attendance at the feast. 

But at this point this parable takes another direction and 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 417 

introduces another aspect of the great truth Jesus was 
teaching that privileged nation. " They that were bid- 
den were not worthy " — therefore the king sent his 
servants into the highways, directing them to bring ail 
they found without regard to their moral antecedents, 
" both bad and good," that the wedding might be furnished 
with guests. 

There was a generous response to this sweeping invita- 
tion. When the king came in, the place was " filled with 
guests." But " he saw there a man who had not on a 
wedding garment." This man had been willing to come but 
was unwilling to make himself fit to remain when he got 
there. " Promiscuous affair," he said to himself in act if 
not in word. " Hardly worth while to don my best." 
He came "as he was," holding cheaply the invitation 
received. 

We need not resort to any pleasant fiction about the 
custom of Oriental monarchs in furnishing every invited 
guest with an appropriate garment when he is to appear at 
court. Let that be as it may — it is not a rigid rule! The 
point brought out in the parable is that a man may appear 
to accept an invitation and yet offer an open insult to his 
host by his unwillingness to make that appropriate prepara- 
tion for the event which lies within his power. 

There are many who are eager for opportunities of all 
sorts, but they lack the readiness to make themselves 
competent and worthy to enjoy the opportunities when they 
come. Here is a family in a narrow tenement clamoring 
for a bath tub and then using it presently as a convenient 
place to dump the next month's coal! Here are workmen 
loudly insistent on shorter hours of employ and then spend- 
ing the added leisure in the rum shop, wasting their wages 
and lessening their efficiency for further employ! Here is 
a labor organization peremptorily claiming recognition and 



418 THE MASTER'S WAY 

participation in the management of a business and then 
once accorded those privileges showing itself unreasonable 
and tyrannical in its ill-founded demands! " Bidden but 
unworthy." Reaching for opportunities but unwilling to 
show themselves competent to rightly use them. 

The fault is not confined to one social class. Here are 
those whose material affluence and intellectual advantages 
easily entitle them to seats at the feast of life, but they fail 
to robe their minds and hearts in those high qualities which 
would make them fit to remain in that place of privilege! 
Here are those who by birth and breeding enjoy a social 
position which opens before them many a door of splendid 
opportunity, yet they stalk in without gracious demeanor, 
lacking that fine consideration for the feelings of others 
which is the wedding garment of all human contact. 

The right to any pleasure or privilege has to be earned 
by an acquired fitness to enjoy it. The invitation in the 
parable was to a wedding feast and the teaching may not 
unfitly be applied to the sacred joys of wedded life. The 
parable says to every young man, " Earn your right to be 
married." Earn it physically! No young fellow has the 
right to bring the taint of vicious disease or the scars of 
debauchery to mate on equal terms with purity and honor. 
Whether the girl knows it or not, he will know — and if 
he is offering her ashes for beauty, he will feel like a whelp. 
He will stand at the marriage altar with a sense of shame, 
condemned by his own sense of honor. Earn your right 
to mate on equal terms with honor and purity. 

Earn your right to be married financially! If the girl 
has sense enough to be worth marrying at all, she does not 
expect to begin her housekeeping on the scale where her 
mother leaves off, or to have you as prosperous at the 
beginning of your career as her father is at the end of his. 
She is ready to share in the struggle and to enjoy the sue- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 419 

cess which will come all the more because she helped win 
it. Even so, it is unmanly to take a girl out of her father's 
home unless you have earned a reasonable prospect of being 
able to provide for her comfort. 

Earn your right to be married morally! Blessed be God 
for the faith and hope and love of those good women who 
cling to unworthy men and finally lift them up by the 
sheer strength of their unselfish devotion! But it is a 
shabby trick to willingly impose that burden upon the 
heart of any woman. Offer the girl, not a victim to be 
reformed, but a husband to be enjoyed. Offer her, not a 
problem, but a man. When you make bold to sit down at 
the feast of married life, see to it that in your own pre- 
paredness of body, brain and heart you are robed in wed- 
ding raiment. 

Marriage is the Matterhorn in the mountain range of 
earthly privilege. It is for the elect to show those high 
qualities which enable them to make the ascent and to stand 
unabashed at the pinnacle of earthly happiness. It is for 
them to be arrayed in those moods which serve to lift 
that whole sacred interest to the highest level of thought 
and feeling. Then the wedding feast will be rightly en- 
joyed by those who are rightly arrayed in the purposes 
and methods which make for happiness and well-being in 
the most fundamental of all human institutions. 

There are men and women who jauntily take their 
places at the Lord's table without that inward and per- 
sonal preparation which alone entitles us to sit at that 
board of privilege. The invitations to the Lord's table 
are issued, not to angels, but to human beings; not to 
perfection, but to the sense of need. Even so, unless we 
11 do truly and earnestly repent of our sins " (to quote 
from the Prayer-Book) " and are in love and charity with 
our neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the 



420 THE MASTER'S WAY 

commandments of God and walking in his holy ways," 
we had best make further preparation for our appearance 
at that Communion Feast by seeking that inward fitness 
here symbolized by the wedding garment. 

" Many are called but few are chosen." The words 
have an ominous sound. But the warning is one to be 
heard and heeded. Interpret them as we may in our 
light-hearted optimism, it is impossible to make " few " 
mean everybody or even an overwhelming majority. Let 
him that thinketh he has succeeded take heed lest he fail! 



LXX 
A DAY OF QUESTIONS 

Matt. 22 : 15-22 

The Master always carried an interrogation point with 
him. It was an effective weapon to puncture the swollen 
bags of conceit and pretense he encountered. When the 
chief priests pressed him for his credentials, saying, " By 
what authority doest thou these things? " he silenced them 
with a shrewd question. " I also will ask you one ques- 
tion — The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of 
men? " They were afraid to say " of heaven " lest he 
should reply, " Why, then, did ye not believe on him? " 
They were afraid to say, " of men," because they feared 
the people who counted John as a prophet. They im- 
mediately slunk away in defeat. 

Jesus first appears before us at the age of twelve " sit- 
ting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking 
them questions. And all that heard him were astonished 
at his understanding and his answers." He learned to use 
the interrogation point in early life. 

And he has been asking questions ever since. What 
wide and effective use he made of this form of teaching! 
" Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? " 
" What man is there of you whom if his son ask bread will 
he give him a stone? " " Whom do men say that I am? " 
" Why callest thou me good? " " If ye love them that 
love you, what do ye more than others? " " Have I been 
so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me? " 
" Can the children of the bride-chamber fast while the 

421 



422 THE MASTER'S WAY 

bridegroom is with them? " l4 Dost thou believe on the Son 
of God? ' " Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things and to enter into his glory? " 

He knew the power of the question to open up the mind 
to a fresh consideration of the truth. He knew the power 
of the question to show the utter absurdity of a suggested 
alternative to some proposition. He knew the power of 
a question to make vivid some truth which might have less 
edge if uttered in a direct affirmative. 

He also encountered a perfect fire of questions. His 
enemies knew the ugly power of an insinuating question 
which intimates what the questioner dares not state openly. 
His enemies used those questions which were meant to put 
him in an awkward dilemma. When a political speaker 
had been repeatedly interrupted by a questioner from the 
crowd who always demanded a plain "Yes," or " Xo," 
insisting that any honest man could answer a straight 
question one way or the other, he retorted upon the dis- 
turber in this effective fashion: ' I will ask you a straight 
question. Answer me. Yes or Xo. Have you stopped 
beating your wife yet? " 

Some of the finest passages in Christ's teaching were 
called out by questions. The lawyer asked. ' Who is my 
neighbor? ' and the Parable of the Good Samaritan was 
the Master's reply. The people asked, " Art thou He that 
should come? ' and that effective list of achievements 
came in his answer — "The blind receive sight, the deaf 
hear, the lepers are cleansed, the lame walk and the poor 
have good tidings preached to them." Peter asked him. 
" Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I 
forgive him? " and the Master answered in that passage 
touching forgiveness which has become a classic on the 
quality of mercy. 

The Master went straight along both asking and answer- 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 423 

ing questions. The child coming into the world feeling 
that he has everything to learn keeps up a steady and 
sometimes wearisome flow of inquiry. The Master, pos- 
sessed of the simple, childlike quality of mind which moves 
straight for the point, understood and valued the power of 
the question in the furtherance of knowledge. 

We find him in this passage within the Temple inclosure 
with his back to the wall contending with his enemies. 
The various parties at Jerusalem, the Herodians, the 
Pharisees and the Sadducees, were all arrayed against him 
in hostile mood. The Pharisees with the Herodians " took 
counsel how they might ensnare him in his talk." They 
said to him in fawning insincerity, " Master, we know that 
thou art true and teachest the way of God in truth and 
regardest not the person of men. Tell us, Is it lawful 
to give tribute to Caesar or not? " 

They were seeking in wily fashion to impale him upon 
one of the two horns of a dilemma. If he forbade tribute 
to Caesar the Herodians as supporters of the existing rigime 
would accuse him to the Roman authorities as one who 
incited rebellion. They would thus array the government 
against him. If he recommended the payment of the hated 
tribute to the Roman government, the Pharisees as repre- 
sentatives of the rabid Jewish party would array the people 
against him as a disloyal son of Abraham. 

How wise he was! He " perceived their wickedness." 
He said to them: "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? 
Show me the tribute money." When they produced a 
penny he said, " Whose image and superscription? " 
They said, " Caesar's. " Then he said to them, " Render 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the 
things that are God's." And the wise men in Church and 
State ponder the validity of that statement of principle 
to this hour. 



424 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Here is the same principle stated by one who closely 
followed Jesus! " Tribute to whom tribute is due; cus- 
tom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom 
honor." There are duties perpendicular and duties hori- 
zontal and one duty differeth from another duty in its 
direction. 

11 Whose image and superscription? Only one answer 
was possible — the tokens on the coin showed what gave 
it value and made it current," says A. E. Dunning. " Am- 
plify these words of Jesus. You use that coin to buy 
what you want. You accept the protection and enjoy the 
advantages of the civil government. Then pay your share 
of the cost. This is your plain duty. 

11 Here, then, is our lesson: we must find out what our 
obligations are and to whom they are owed, then meet 
them as honest men. Are you a partner in the civil state? 
Do you walk its streets, ride over its roads, live safely 
under the protection of its police, do business under its 
laws? Then pay your share as an honest partner, both 
in money and service. Treat your church in the same 
way." 

Then came the third party, the Sadducees, with another 
type of question that they might catch him in his talk. 
The Sadducees represented a violent reaction against the 
material conception of the future life which was current. 
They had reacted so far by raising social and physical 
objections regarding the hope of a future life as to deny 
the claim of immortality altogether. 

The Pharisees so far shared in the material conception 
of the future world as to believe that the faithful would 
have wives and children in Paradise — an idea which the 
Moslems share to this day. And in opposition to this view 
the Sadducees brought forward a fictitious case where a 
man married a wife and upon his decease his brother 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 425 

married her, and upon the decease of the second yet 
another brother married her until every one of the seven 
brothers in that family had been married to this one woman. 
The Sadducees brought this question as a kind of poser — 
"In the resurrection whose wife shall she be? " 

The Master had a way of cutting the knot of any 
quibble rather than seeking patiently to disentangle confu- 
sion deliberately created by mental perversity. He did 
not weigh the respective claims of these seven men who in 
the fairy tale brought by the objectors had all sustained 
marital relations with the same woman. " Ye do err," 
he said, " not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of 
God! In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given 
in marriage but are as the angels of God." 

The point is that the physical necessity for such rela- 
tions as are sustained in the married state for the perpetua- 
tion of the race do not exist in the unseen world. There 
being no more death there is no further need of the renewal 
of the race through the relations honorably sustained in 
marriage. The statement of Jesus does not imply that 
human affections cultivated and fostered by wedded life 
on earth may not have their perfecting in the future world. 

The Sadducees in undertaking to ridicule the doctrine 
of a future life and to deny the validity of such a hope by 
suggesting imaginary complications arising out of earthly 
relationships were showing that they neither understood 
aright the prophetic inheritance of their own race nor ap- 
preciated the power of God who is able to order the rela- 
tions of that future world in such manner as to satisfy 
all the legitimate expectations of both intelligence and 
affection. " Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the 
power of God." 

" Have ye not read that God said, I am the God of 
Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." 



426 THE MASTER'S WAY 

This was one of the commonplaces of their religious speech. 
Jesus indicated that in this oft-quoted phrase they were 
steadily testifying to their faith in a future life. When 
those words were uttered by the Lord, the three men named 
had been a long time dead. Now God is not the God of 
dead persons but of living persons. The affirmation which 
the Sadducees accepted and cited carried with it therefore 
the implication that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were 
still in existence. 

Science makes its advance by asking questions. It 
asks for knowledge touching some problem and makes a 
tentative reply to its own question in what is called " a 
hypothesis." It then seeks by competent investigation to 
either verify or discredit that hypothesis by positive 
knowledge. This way progress lies. Religion may utilize 
the same inductive method, for the Master of men and of 
methods went about " asking and answering questions." 



LXXI 

THE NEED OF RESERVE FORCE 

Matt. 25 : 1-13 

There is a tender pathos in this story. The scene is a 
wedding feast, bright and joyous. The interest centers in 
ten maidens, chosen, as bridesmaids commonly are, because 
they were young and fair. And to that situation came the 
straight call of duty. 

When it came some were prepared for it — "they that 
were ready went in to the marriage." Some were unpre- 
pared and because of that fact they were shut out. The 
ten maidens had all made some preparation. They were 
present at the place where they were to render a certain 
service. They had on their wedding garments. They had 
brought their lamps with them and had them lighted. 
But five of them had not made sufficient preparation. 
They had not provided an adequate supply of oil in their 
vessels to replenish their lamps and when the cry came at 
midnight: " Behold the bridegroom! Go ye out to meet 
him," their lamps were already going out. 

The extra supply of oil which the wise had provided 
in the vessels they carried with them stands for that re- 
serve force in the inner life rendering it competent and 
adequate for the calls of duty which ring out along life's 
pathway. The testing which goes on under these succes- 
sive calls of obligation draws the line of demarcation be- 
tween the wise and the foolish. The wise have taken 
pains to develop fitness and adequacy for the tasks await- 
ing them; the foolish have made no such provision. And 

427 



428 THE MASTER'S WAY 

as a result some go in to the feast of life and some are shut 
out. 

The call of duty is an echo of the voice of God. Moral 
obligations are not mere conventional notions which have 
somehow gotten into our heads. They are not solely 
matters between a man and his fellows. They have their 
sanctions on high, reaching up into that moral order whose 
line is gone out into all the world. They are joints and 
sections of an eternal purpose set for the achievement of 
definite moral ends. It was no mere fleeting occasion which 
here uttered the summons — it was the voice of the Eter- 
nal, saying to those who had been appointed to a definite 
service: " Behold your duty! Go ye out and meet it." 

The chief difference in people lies not in the fact that 
some are sincere and some are hypocrites. The conscious, 
deliberate hypocrites are few. The main difference lies 
in the fact that some people take the call of duty seriously 
and devote themselves in thoroughgoing fashion to the task 
of becoming adequate to its demands, while others take it 
lightly and carelessly. The foolish virgins did nothing 
wicked — they did not stone the wedding procession or 
insult the bride or steal the refreshments. They simply 
failed to make adequate preparation for doing their duty — 
they were sent to be light-bearers, but when the hour 
struck their lamps were dark for lack of oil. 

The highest duty in life is to fit one's self to meet the 
legitimate demands of any situation where he may be 
called to act. The unstudied, generous impulse may flame 
up and burn beautifully for an hour, but its lamp is liable 
to go out for lack of sustaining oil. It is only well- 
grounded character, rooted in principle and conviction, 
which can be relied upon to burn until midnight — and 
if need be on through the small, hard hours until day dawns. 

They used to say of the Duke of Wellington, " He does 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 429 

his duty as naturally as a horse eats oats." It was a 
splendid tribute. The habit of fidelity gave to his very 
features the look of command and to his words the fine 
accent of authority. But to show that high quality the 
Duke had to begin his work of preparation a long time 
before he reached the war which culminated in victory at 
Waterloo. He had to have his lamp of moral energy 
fed perpetually from a source unfailing. 

The largest lamp soon burns out unless its bowl is re- 
plenished. The strongest life is doomed to failure unless 
it be restocked with motive, stimulus and spiritual stamina 
during those long, hard hours which lead up to some mid- 
night in the soul. The ancient prophet in his vision saw 
a golden lamp burning brightly through all the long hours 
because on either side of it there was a live olive tree 
feeding its oil steadily into the bowl of the lamp. In 
like fashion the man who would show evenly Christ's spirit 
and do steadily Christ's work and advance steadily in 
Christ's Kingdom, must stand in such relation to the living 
God as to have his inner life perpetually renewed from the 
Infinite Source of life. 

The unexpectedness of the summons — it came " at 
midnight" — is emphasized because that entered into the 
result. It always enters. You may be moving quietly 
upon your way when some unlooked-for crisis makes a 
supreme demand. The young fellow at college finds him- 
self suddenly injected into a group of students who are the 
foes of sobriety, clean living, intellectual achievement. 
The business man finds himself in a situation where a lie 
or a dishonest trick will secure an immediate advantage for 
his enterprise. The man with a Christian inheritance and 
training finds himself unexpectedly in a situation where 
the tide sets strongly against honest faith and godly living 
— he is sorely tempted to drift with the current. 



430 THE MASTER'S WAY 

In these situations hundreds of men go down in moral 
defeat. They have no reserves. They have a bit of oil 
in their moral lamps but no vessels at hand to replenish 
them when the period of temptation to barter away the 
higher for the lower is protracted. They might have had — 
they had been repeatedly urged to make their moral re- 
sources adequate to the demands which were sure to come, 
but they had neglected it. Now when the hour strikes and 
the call comes, " Behold your duty — Go ye out to meet 
it," their strength fails and they slink away in moral 
darkness. 

The hard test may come in some personal crisis. Your 
health may fail, compelling you to face a life of inactivity 
and invalidism. You may meet with business reverses and 
feel tempted to fling away principle and perhaps life itself. 
Death may enter your home, blotting all the light out of 
your sky even though the sun shines elsewhere. In the 
face of that hard situation there comes a call for patience 
and heroism, for fidelity and steadfastness. Alas for you, 
if you find that the lamp which ought to be burning with 
a steady flame is going out! If that hour finds your mind 
without faith, your heart without grace, your will not re- 
enforced by its sense of harmony with the divine will, the 
crisis will spell defeat. 

The call of duty comes to all college-trained men and 
women these days in the form of a demand for intellectual 
seriousness, honesty and efficiency. We live in the twenti- 
eth century, and if we listened only to the orators without 
looking at the facts, we might fancy that the sunlight of 
intelligence was shining everywhere. 

It is not so. In the face of all the humbug and delusion, 
superstition and dogmatism in modern life there is sore need 
of the high qualities named above. The plain facts of 
physiology, hygiene and sanitary science are tossed out of 



THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 431 

the window almost contemptuously on the strength of some 
flighty bit of sentiment. Multitudes of men are hurried 
away into the swamp in pursuit of some political or eco- 
nomic will-o'-the-wisp whose unreality has been demon- 
strated by wide and instructive areas of actual experience. 
Nostrums and patent medicines of all sorts, physical, 
mental, industrial, political, are being swallowed wholesale 
to the detriment of our personal and corporate well-being. 
Poor dumb fools are still butting their brains out upon the 
moral corner-stones of the universe in the vain supposition 
that, after all, the way of the transgressor may not prove 
hard. 

Spiritual adequacy is a purely personal matter as Jesus 
here portrayed it. " Give us of your oil," the foolish said 
to the wise, " for our lamps are going out." Why not? 
Why should not the prudent generously share their re- 
sources with their less fortunate sisters? They could not. 
That for which the oil stands is not transferable. It can- 
not be handed about from one life to another in the time 
of crises because the oil stands for that accumulation of 
moral reserve which belongs to well-developed personal 
character. 

The parable rings true. The very nature of the case, 
the God of things as they are, is forever saying to the 
foolish who would borrow from their friends to supply 
their own deficiences: " Not so! Go and buy for your- 
selves! Moral adequacy to the demands made by recurring 
duty must be attained by each one for himself." The 
father of the reckless, dissolute, headstrong boy would be 
glad to share his own sobriety, integrity and love of hard 
work with the young fellow, but he cannot. The son 
must gain those needed qualities for himself. 

The highest happiness in life comes in making one's 
self adequate to meet the calls of duty as they come. 



432 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The very achievement of that result is a wedding-feast in 
itself — it is the marriage of aspiration with realization. 
Turn again to the Representative Man! See him praying 
among the olive trees the night he was betrayed! See his 
pitying eyes upon those trembling disciples who hesitate 
between loyalty and flight! See him, the holiest being 
who ever walked the earth, facing the necessity of dying 
like a criminal on the Cross! The situation seemed to 
lack all the elements of joy — it was the very irony of fate. 
But when he speaks to the Father, he says, ' I have 
finished the work thou gavest me to do and now come I 
to thee." When he speaks to his disciples he says. " These 
things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain 
in you and that your joy might be full." The joy of duty 
prepared for and well done lifted him beyond the reach of 
even.- earthlv enemv. 



BOOK IV 
THE LIFE ETERNAL 



LXXII 

WHAT SHALL I DO TO INHERIT ETERNAL 

LIFE? 

Mark 10 : 17-31 

Here was a man who had been steadily choosing honesty 
rather than fraud, truth rather than falsehood, purity 
rather than lust! He had kept the commandments from 
his youth up. Yet straight, clean, respectable though he 
was, there was an unrest, a dissatisfaction, a yearning in 
his heart for something more. 

It was this yearning which prompted him to come to 
Christ with his straightforward question: "What lack I 
yet? What shall I do to inherit eternal life? " His heart 
was restless because it had not learned to rest in Him. 

He was not a man to be lightly esteemed — when Jesus 
looked upon him he loved him — and what Jesus loves we 
may. He represents a type of man very common in good 
society. When we have checked off the scamps and ras- 
cals, sometimes found in dress suits as well as in shirt 
sleeves; when we have cast out the two-faced sneaks who 
show one side of their natures in decent society and another 
side in the darkness of guilty indulgence, there remains a 
vast number of just, clean, respectable men. Yet in their 
hearts too there is the same unrest and longing. If each 
one were as outspoken as this well-to-do young man, he 
might say, " What lack I yet? " He would recognize the 
fact that there is something higher and holier in human 
experience which he has not achieved. 

What did Jesus say to the man who stands before us as 

435 



436 THE MASTER'S WAY 

a type of that entire class? He said three things: First, 
there is a vital defect in this formal righteousness — "One 
thing thou lackest." The glad spontaneity of the child of 
God who is about his Father's business because of his joy- 
ous sense of the filial relation he sustains was wanting. 
Second, the spirit of service must be inwrought with the 
habit of moral respectability — "Sell and give." Third, 
the new experience must root down into personal fellow- 
ship with Christ — "Follow me." Let me develop these 
three points in the passage in order. 

The formal rule-keeping righteousness which the rich 
young man exhibited was too largely negative. A man 
may keep his life free from the sins of idolatry and pro- 
fanity, murder and adultery, stealing and lying, and yet 
be far from the Kingdom of God. He may do all this in 
a mood thoroughly selfish. He may be inspired by per- 
sonal prudence to avoid these coarser vices. He may do 
all this and yet show himself sadly lacking in sympathy, 
in affection, in the habit of kindly usefulness. You can 
think of men who are coldly correct in all the outward 
moralities and yet constantly repellent by their lack of 
heart. Except our righteousness exceed the righteousness 
of the Scribes and Pharisees — both in quality and in 
quantity — we shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 

The formal rule-keeping righteousness also lacks warmth 
and zest. You cannot fire the hearts of men with enthu- 
siasm over a moral program which reads like a page from 
a book on etiquette. To arouse the moral nature to do 
its best there must be great aims, splendid ideals, far- 
reaching purposes — nay, more, there must be the sense of 
devotion to some personal object. The Word must be 
made flesh if it is to dwell among us full of grace and 
truth, competent to impart fresh stores of spiritual life. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 437 

When Jesus said to the young man, " Why callest thou 
me good? " he was not disclaiming the title. He was 
indicating that it was not a title to be lightly used. He 
would have the young ruler delve down to a deeper con- 
ception of goodness — he had not gotten beyond the external 
observance of the law of moral respectability. He had 
not provided in his moral program for those personal and 
emotional elements which must quicken the coldly ethical 
if we are to grow up into anything worthy to be called 
" eternal life." " One thing thou lackest " — the glad 
spontaneity of the man who lives in the filial spirit as a 
child of the Eternal. 

The rich young man was told further to u sell and give." 
He had never coupled the two words together in just that 
way. Other combinations are more in evidence. " Sell 
and get" — receiving more than one yields in his bargains 
will make a man prosperous. " Sell and spend " — this 
will open the way to glorious self-indulgence. But " sell 
and give " is calculated to induce the spirit of service. 

Convert your holdings into usings! Make what you own 
an instrument of service. It applies to much more than 
the property one holds. Your intelligence, your culture, 
your social facility, your affections, your leisure — make 
them all instruments of service. Sell and give from all 
these assets of yours. 

In a church I once served there was a man of large 
interests and high civic position, a university man well 
read and widely traveled, who agreed for a time to teach 
a class of high-school boys in the Sunday school. He 
taught them the lesson for the day, but he also gave them 
counsel, inspiration, enrichment out of his own more 
abundant life. The boys counted it one of the greatest 
privileges which had come to them just to know the man 
in that more intimate way — they talk about it to this day. 



438 THE MASTER'S WAY 

There came to each one of those boys a kindling of 
interest, the awakening of a higher ambition, the strength- 
ening of nobler purpose, an enlargement of personal experi- 
ence. It was good for the boys and good for the man to 
thus impart himself. He had learned to " sell and give,-' 
for that which has enriched one life may be made to enrich 
others. 

This mode of life had best root down into personal 
fellowship with Christ, for the Master's last word to the 
young ruler was, " Follow me." The reason is plain — 
it is the person of Christ rather than the moral demands 
of the Ten Commandments or even the more searching 
ideals of the Sermon on the Mount which has made Chris- 
tianity great, enduring and effective. 

It was a wise college president who said recently: " The 
cause of Christ has been criticised by its enemies and cari- 
catured by its friends. The truth has sometimes fossilized 
in the minds of the aged and been prematurely forced 
upon the lips of undeveloped children. It has been mingled 
with all manner of exploded superstitions, false philosophy, 
science that is not so and history that never happened. 
It has been obscured under absurd rites, buried beneath 
incredible creeds, discredited by sentimentalists, evaporated 
by mystics, monopolized by narrow ecclesiastics. But in 
spite of all these grave clothes which unbelieving disciples 
have tried to wrap around it, it has lived and does live 
and will live, holding the keys of eternal life." 

The great vital, heart-renewing and soul-inspiring con- 
stant through all these outward changes in current Chris- 
tianity has been the spirit of Jesus Christ as he stands 
revealed on the pages of history at the time of his coming 
and as he stands revealed on all the pages of Christian 
history since that high hour. And because he knew that 
this would be the main source of strength in the estab- 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 439 

lishment of the Kingdom he proclaimed, it was inevitable 
that he should exalt the significance of personal fellowship 
with himself. His great word was: " Follow me! Abide 
in me! " 

This the young man lacked. He had morality — he 
had kept the Commandments from his youth. He had 
earnestness — he ran to Christ and kneeled to him in mak- 
ing his appeal. He had courtesy — he addressed him as 
" Good Master." He had capacity for that finer quality, 
of life which Jesus came to manifest and to impart. And 
for all this Jesus, as he looked upon him, loved him. 
But when he was brought face to face with the highest, 
he flinched. " His countenance fell at the saying and he 
went away sorrowful." The quest of the best was not for 
him. 

In the city of Dresden there hangs a canvas of Hofmann 
which has been widely reproduced in photograph. The 
artist has painted with wondrous skill the look of tender 
interest, of sympathy and of disappointment which swept 
across the face of Christ when this young man refused the 
call of the highest. 

Many right choices he had already made, but now when 
it came to a supreme choice between selfishness and ser- 
vice, between following his own respectable pleasures and 
following Christ, he failed. The highest he had ever seen 
was offered and declined. Thus when the curtain falls in 
the Scripture narrative, the young man is faced away from 
his Saviour and Lord. And when the curtain falls for 
each one of us, the last curtain on the last act closing up 
the life on earth, will it leave us faced away from him, 
refusing the best he offers, or will it leave us faced toward 
him in glad acceptance and unending aspiration? 

The incident made a profound impression upon the dis- 
ciples. Jesus saw the eager interest written upon their 



440 THE MASTER'S WAY 

faces as he " looked round about." He remarked, not 
harshly but sympathetically, " How hardly shall they 
that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God." The 
disciples were " amazed at his words," for to the Jewish 
mind the possession of great riches seemed indicative of 
the favor of God. Then Jesus put it even more strongly 
in that startling paradox, "It is easier for a camel to go 
through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the 
Kingdom of God." 

We are not to juggle with these words by fanciful refer- 
ences to some small side gate in the wall of Jerusalem 
called " The Needle's Eye," where the camel must kneel 
and divest himself of his pack to pass through. Let the 
words stand in their rugged paradoxical boldness. It was 
the Oriental way of saying that to devote large possessions 
to Christian ends and to administer large fortunes in a 
thoroughly Christian spirit is a work of gigantic difficulty. 
And every conscientious rich man finds that it is so. With 
men unaided it would be impossible, but with God even 
that measure of spiritual achievement is possible. 



LXXIII 
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE GREAT? 

Mark 10 : 32-45 

Here was a little procession headed for Jerusalem! "They 
were in the way going up to Jerusalem — and Jesus was 
going before them." The Master and his friends as 
they toiled along were only a few yards apart, speaking 
after the manner of men, but in moral feeling there was a 
continent between them. They were widely removed not 
in miles but in moods. When he turned about at the petty 
demand made by two of them and looked back from the 
spiritual level where he stood, he could scarcely see them. 

They were going up to Jerusalem! They but dimly 
understood the significance of that far off -goal. Yet they 
must have felt something unwonted on that fateful journey. 
We read that the disciples " were amazed and they that 
followed were afraid." His bearing, the deeper lines in his 
face, his evident brooding over the mighty issues of this 
journey to Jerusalem, had served to impress them with the 
sense of something ominous. 

Then the Master swiftly outlined to their wondering 
minds the program of experience which lay ahead. " He 
took the Twelve and began to tell them what things should 
happen unto him! Behold, we go up to Jerusalem! The 
Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests" — 
the human at the mercy of a blind ecclesiasticism. " They 
shall condemn him. They shall mock him and scourge 
him. They shall spit upon him. They shall kill him." 
The cumulative effect of these successive statements as to 

441 



442 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the shame and the pain which awaited him at the hands 
of evil was calculated to induce a new mood in the hearts 
of those rough men. If any man among them ventures 
to open his lips now it will be to utter something high 
and fine. 

Alas, no! Has he been so long time with them and yet 
have they not known him! They show themselves incom- 
petent to follow in his train even afar off. Their souls 
were out of drawing in that their minds were still self- 
centered. " James and John came to him saying, Grant 
us that we may sit one on thy right hand and the other on 
thy left hand, in thy glory." 

The desire for distinction is deep-rooted and universal. 
Whether it is Napoleon on horseback, bent upon the mili- 
tary mastery of all Europe, or Simeon Stylites on his pillar 
eagerly enjoying the crowds of wondering admirers at- 
tracted by the fame of his self-denial, the passion for dis- 
tinction asserts its power. Here in that hour when momen- 
tous events in the moral history of the world were just 
emerging above the horizon, two of the inner circle of the 
Master's disciples were all intent upon the little axes they 
had to grind. 

It was a big, bold, brusque demand they made. In their 
uninstructed minds the glory and the grandeur of life was 
to be found in climbing up where one could sit on the right 
hand of power. They had yet to learn that true glory lies 
in the readiness to stoop down and serve with that effi- 
ciency which springs alone from complete self-devotement. 
How callow they were! 

And to sit at his right hand or his left was not what 
they imagined. Were they indeed ready to be thus inti- 
mately associated with him in the high tasks of the King- 
dom. " Can ye drink of the cup that I drink? Can ye be 
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? " He 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 443 

is indicating in vivid phrase that to be " next to him " in 
the establishment of his Kingdom means to share in all the 
perils and sacrifices of that spiritual undertaking. They 
were clamoring for glory — he throws them back upon 
themselves by his inquiry as to whether their fortitude and 
devotion were commensurate with the high positions they 
sought. 

Can ye drink of the cup? Can ye be baptized with the 
baptism I am baptized with? With the glad confidence of 
youthful inexperience they bravely retorted, " We can." 
It was what Newman called " The Venture of Faith." 
Their untested purposes ran out eagerly, not knowing 
whither they went. Their confident acceptance of his chal- 
lenge does them honor, but when the hard test came they 
flinched. 

Jesus assured them that they would indeed share in his 
sufferings, but to sit on his right hand or on his left was 
not his to give. " It shall be given to them for whom it is 
prepared." In some earthly kingdom preferment might be 
bestowed arbitrarily by personal favor. In his Kingdom 
inward fitness rather than personal influence would deter- 
mine the award. 

11 When the ten heard it they began to be much dis- 
pleased with James and John." Two were full, of personal 
ambition and ten were filled with personal resentment lest 
the ambitions of the favored two should be accomplished. 
How self-centered they all were even in the face of the an- 
nouncement made regarding the tragic ending of their 
Master's career! Self-assertion on his right hand and carp- 
ing jealousy on the left — with what untempered mortar 
was he compelled to lay the foundations of the coming 
Kingdom! 

Then Jesus proceeded to define the nature of true great- 
ness. How strangely have the current estimates of men at 



444 THE MASTER'S WAY 

this point run counter to his! There was a time when 
every one said, " The great man is the fighter." Each 
man was measured by the length and the strength of his 
sword. Saul was made king of Israel because he stood head 
and shoulders above his fellows, a big, strapping, successful 
fighter. In Japan the ancient aristocracy, the Samurai, 
was made up entirely from the military class. In mediaeval 
Europe the plumed knight and the helmetted warrior were 
held in highest esteem. 

But that mood is passing. The swords will be slowly 
but surely beaten into plowshares. The bright metal 
of the nation's best manhood must be shaped into produc- 
tive rather than into destructive forms. When the people 
of France were deciding by popular vote a few years since 
who was the greatest Frenchman in history, the largest 
number of ballots did not go to Napoleon, the man of bat- 
tles, who destroyed the lives of a million men — the largest 
number went to Pasteur, the man of science, who in his 
laboratory laid the foundations for saving the lives of un- 
told millions. Man at his best is not a fighter. 

The military type of civilization is everywhere being 
superseded by the commercial. There are many who 
would say that the greatest man is the one who produces 
and accumulates the largest amount of money, provided 
only that he does it honestly. It is a more splendid thing 
in the eyes of aspiring youth to be a captain of industry 
than a captain of infantry. Men are being measured to- 
day, not by yardsticks and not by the length of their 
swords, but the size of their " rolls " of banknotes. 

But that mood also is passing. We cannot measure the 
dimensions of a man with a banknote. We cannot tell 
" how much a man is worth " by looking in the assessor's 
book or in Bradstreet. We can only tell how much the 
things which he owns are worth. The worth of the man is 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 445 

quite another matter. And the greatest man is not the 
one who owns the largest number of things, for a man's 
life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he 
possesses. 

There are those who say that the greatest man is the 
thinker. The military type of civilization gives way to the 
commercial, and commercial interests are in turn over- 
shadowed by the intellectual. The true measure of a man 
is to be found, it is asserted, in the curious gray convolu- 
tions of the brain. The man of insight and judgment, the 
man of outlook and discrimination, the man of original and 
creative ability in the realm of knowledge — here surely 
we find man at his best! Here certainly is the type of 
excellence which is entitled to its seat at the right hand of 
power. 

We have crystallized that estimate into proverbs: 
" Knowledge is power." " The world belongs to the man 
who knows." " Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore 
get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding." 
The world is laying a generous tribute of its admiration 
and of its treasure at the feet of expert knowledge. The 
Church and the Hospital are sometimes almost forgotten 
by the rich in their eager desire to endow and equip great 
universities and to house huge libraries of books. 

The Master of the higher values passed by all these im- 
perfect conceptions of greatness. " Ye know that among 
the Gentiles the great ones exercise lordship and dominion. 
It shall not be so among you. If any man would be great 
among you let him serve! The greatest of all is the ser- 
vant of all." 

Usefulness is greatness. There is no other greatness 
worthy of the name. The greatest man in any group, in 
any community, in any nation, is the one who most worthily 
and acceptably serves the deeper interests and permanent 



446 THE MASTER'S WAY 

well-being of his fellows. How would you define man at 
his best? Ideally he is a servant. At his best man serves. 
This is what the Perfect Man said: " I am among you as 
One who serves." This is what the Perfect Man did: "He 
took upon himself the form of a servant," and became 
obedient to the exacting demands of the most august form 
of service. Wherefore God has highly exalted him until 
his name is above every name. 

The fighter with his sword and the money-maker with 
his roll of banknotes and the thinker with his book will all 
have to stand aside and take the lower place. When hu- 
manity rose to its highest historic level in the person of 
Jesus of Nazareth it was seen that he came not to be 
ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ran- 
som for many. This is the quality- of life which alone be- 
comes redemptive, saving the world from its sins. 



LXXIV 
COUNT THE COST! 

Luke 14 : 25-35 

" There went great multitudes with him and he turned 
and said " those searching words which we find in this 
passage! The multitudes were beginning to believe that 
Jesus might be the promised Messiah, that the crisis might 
be near at hand, that he might be ready to set up his 
visible Kingdom. They wanted to keep near him that they 
might not miss any of the glories and blessings which they 
believed were to accompany that consummation of Israel's 
hopes. 

In the face of this growing popularity Jesus raised the 
standards of discipleship and imposed more searching tests. 
He knew that the narrow gate does not commonly gather 
the largest crowd. When he saw the crowd collecting there- 
fore he proceeded to show them that the gate was narrow 
and the way strait. 

He knew that the highest ideal does not ordinarily poll 
the largest number of votes. When he saw these " great 
multitudes " preparing to roll up a tremendous majority for 
the cause he represented, he immediately added ten cubits 
to the stature of those ideals which the people in their 
shortsighted fervor were vainly imagining to be adequate 
for the establishment of the Kingdom. 

" Count the cost," he cried to them as he saw them 
thronging him. If any man comes to me and does not sub- 
ordinate his own natural affection, his love of gain and 
" his own life also " to that supreme spiritual loyalty req- 
uisite to discipleship, " he cannot be my disciple." 

447 



448 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" His fellow-countrymen were very much excited by the 
hope of a wonderful social and political deliverance which 
they wrongly believed to be close at hand," says Dean 
Inge. " He told them that their millennium was not com- 
ing at all, nor anything like it. But he added that he had 
been commissioned to bring them something better, namely, 
a spiritual and moral emancipation which would make life 
happy and blessed for them whatever earthly troubles 
they might have to endure. This ' unpatriotic pessimism ' 
was too much for his countrymen. So although they ap- 
proved of the excellent moral tone of his sermons, they had 
him crucified." 

11 Count the cost," he said over and over again. He 
would have every Christian know in advance " exactly what 
he was in for." " Whosoever doth not bear his cross can- 
not be my disciple." " Whosoever will come after me, let 
him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." 
" Ye call me Master and Lord. If I, then, your Lord and 
Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one 
another's feet. The servant is not greater than his Lord." 
" Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." 

He illustrated this necessity of counting the cost by two 
references to current events. Pilate had recently begun an 
aqueduct and had been compelled to abandon his project 
for want of means to complete it. Jesus would not have 
the people placed in a similarly absurd position. " Which 
of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first 
and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish 
it." 

Herod the king had been attacked by Aretas, an Ara- 
bian king, for divorcing his first wife (who was a daughter 
of this king) in order to marry Herodias. The result was 
that his weaker army was entirely destroyed. " What king 
going to make war against another king sitteth not down 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 449 

first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand 
to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thou- 
sand? " Jesus would not have them undertake the Chris- 
tian life without knowing what they were about lest haply 
men might mock them, saying, " These men began to build 
and were hot able to finish." 

It may be questioned whether the modern church has 
been taking its Master seriously at this point. Has it been 
taking its own obligations seriously? The living of a Chris- 
tian life is no holiday affair. We shall not advance the 
cause of him who uttered these searching words by welcom- 
ing all sorts and conditions of mind and heart into church 
membership. Let it be made clear to all who come that 
what they are undertaking is rigorous. The rolls of mem- 
bership might not be so extensive as at present, but would 
not the real power of the church for good be greater if its 
life were made more intensive? 

It is our business as it was his business to hold up the 
Christian standard of living and not whittle it down by 
endless shavings of concession until it has so fine a point 
upon it as to be indistinguishable from the standard of 
worldly society. And it is our further business to strive 
to live according to that standard through his grace, 
whether men hear or forbear, leaving the result with him 
who is responsible for the whole undertaking in a sense that 
we are not. 

By this straightforward policy of thoroughness we shall 
also consult the highest interest of the cause we have at 
heart. There is a certain fine flavor in that passage from 
" The Strength of the People," by Mrs. Bosanquet. " In 
all social work there is one main thing which it is impor- 
tant to remember — that the mind is the man. If we are 
clear about this great fact we have an unfailing test to 
apply to any scheme of social reformation. Does it appeal 



450 THE MASTER'S WAY 

to men's minds? Not merely to their momentary needs or 
appetites or fancies, but to the higher powers of affection, 
thought and reasonable action? Great religious teachers 
who have put their faith in spiritual conviction and con- 
version, who have refused to accept anything short of the 
whole man, have achieved results which seem miraculous 
to those who are willing to compromise for a share in the 
souls they undertake to guide! " 

But what a paradoxical statement is this! " If any man 
come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife 
and children and brothers and sisters, he cannot be my 
disciple." Is this the teacher who on another occasion de- 
nounced the slippery Pharisees who made the command, 
11 Honor thy father and thy mother," of no effect by their 
moral shuffling? They said, " Corban," and then refused 
to use their means to minister to the needs of their par- 
ents? Is this the One who on his cross looked with 
affection upon Mary and thinking of her future necessities, 
forgot his own anguish in order to say to John, " Son, 
behold thy mother," and to Mary herself, " Mother, be- 
hold thy son "? 

There seems an inconsistency here. But Jesus spake not 
as the scribes nor as we do here in Connecticut. He put 
his principles oftentimes in bold paradoxes to arrest atten- 
tion and to fix some principle in the minds of his hearers. 
He confidently left something to the good sense and dis- 
crimination of his hearers who would not always follow the 
letter of his words to their hurt, but would by the spirit 
of them enter into life. 

In any normal situation the natural affection felt for those 
we are bidden by Scripture and by our own best instincts 
to hold dear, would be in no sense incompatible with su- 
preme loyalty to Christ. The two are not opposed. But 
where an abnormal situation does arise, where the call of 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 451 

the nearest relatives looks in one moral direction and the 
call of duty to Christ in quite another, then the secondary 
must yield to the primary. 

No daughter is called upon to degrade herself to gain 
means to minister to the pleasure of her father and mother. 
No man is warranted in stealing to gain wealth to minister 
to the pleasure of the wife he loves. When conflict comes 
between the natural implications of devotion to those we 
hold dear and the higher law of obedience to the perfect 
will of God, the latter must take precedence. And in place 
of putting this in that abstract form common to our ethical 
teachers, the Master, himself an Oriental shaping his mes- 
sage primarily for Orientals, utters this truth in a striking 
paradox. 

The cost of discipleship as here defined is seen to be 
great. It involves nothing less than the entire devotion of 
the entire man to the highest ideals the world has ever 
seen. Whatever has value is purchased with a great price. 
The redemption of our souls was precious and it was 
purchased by the blood of Christ. The gaining of that 
quality of character worthy to be called " Christian " is 
precious and it comes only where a man invests all that he 
has in securing that pearl of great price. 

There are no short cuts — it cannot be done by casting 
one's self down from the pinnacle of some temple in a 
momentary burst of dare-devil enthusiasm. There are no 
royal roads — it cannot be achieved by some clever bit of 
alchemy which would change stones into bread. There is 
no hope along the line of easy compromise — the devil 
does not have " all the kingdoms of this world " to sell, 
and if he had we could not afford to take them on his 
terms. The high end in view can only be gained by strict 
obedience to every word that proceeds out of the mouth of 
God. 



452 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" Nothing fails like success. It kills off families more 
surely than any oppression that falls short of slavery. 
Luxury has destroyed every class or nation that practiced 
it." Therefore let not that pungent, preservative salt of 
Christian life and service found in the spirit and habit of 
self-sacrifice, ever lose its savor! For whosoever would 
save his life shall lose it; and whosoever would lose his life 
for Christ's sake shall find it. 



LXXV 
THE PARABLE OF FORGIVENESS 

Matt. 18 : 15-35 

With all his lofty idealism Jesus never forgot that he 
was dealing with flesh and blood. He knew that the 
interests of the Kingdom would be intrusted to human 
beings. He faced the fact of moral limitation. "It must 
needs be that offenses come" — it all comes inevitably 
in the day's work. Therefore the Christian must learn 
how to live in a faulty world bearing himself with large- 
minded charity. 

Here are " counsels of perfection " regarding the treat- 
ment of fault in others! " If thy brother trespass against 
thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone." 
The more common way is to tell all the neighbors or the 
boarding house or the newspapers. " Between thee and 
him alone " — for where two men unwitnessed by the 
prying eyes of any third party, and with even one of them 
in the right mood touching the trespass committed, are 
met together, there is an Unseen One in the midst lending 
his aid. 

The man who is sinned against is to take the initiative 
— " go and tell him his fault," without waiting for the 
offender to come forward and confess. The man who is 
not at fault can more appropriately and more effectively 
make the overtures. It is so in the divine economy — 
there the initiative is taken by the Father who seeks to 
reconcile sinful men to himself. While we were yet sin- 
ners he sent his Son. 

453 



454 THE MASTER'S WAY 

If the offender meets this overture with the right re- 
sponse the matter is settled — "if he hear thee thou hast 
gained thy brother." If he refuses, then it may be well to 
try again in company with one or two trusted friends of 
both parties. By the mouths of two or three witnesses the 
equities may be indicated and established. If he refuses 
their offices then the matter is to be reported to the con- 
gregation of Christian believers. And if the offender de- 
clines to heed the admonition of the church, he becomes 
as a heathen man and a publican. 

It ought to be noted that this counsel was to apply to 
personal wrongs done — "If thy brother trespass against 
thee." The social and legal aspects of the evil done are 
not dealt with in this passage. And the forgiveness to be 
extended was conditional — it depended upon the willing- 
ness of the wrongdoer to respond to the kindly approach. 
The right action of two is demanded for the experience of 
forgiveness — it must be proffered by a magnanimous heart 
and be received by a penitent one. The blessing of for- 
giveness cannot fall like the rain of heaven upon the just 
and upon the unjust. A man can be rained on no matter 
what his mood may be, but he can only be forgiven when 
his mood is right. 

In the just exercise of this grace Christian society may 
wield a marvelous power. It may by extending mercy to 
those who have made moral failure aid in releasing them 
from their evil habits; it may by harsh condemnation help 
to fix them in wrong courses. It was not to some eccle- 
siastic wielding an esoteric and magical authority but to 
Christian society that Jesus said, " Whatsoever ye shall 
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye 
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." So potent 
is the mercy shown or the harshness exhibited toward one 
who has done wrong that the judgments of earth have a 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 455 

way of registering themselves in results which determine 
the verdict in an abiding moral order. 

In the face of this august responsibility and this search- 
ing demand for charity toward offenders, Peter felt that he 
would like to have his obligations more closely defined. 
He would be glad to have a limited stint of duty cut out 
for him. " Lord, how oft! How oft shall my brother sin 
against me and I forgive him? Till seven times? " The 
Rabbis said three times was enough and Peter felt 
that he was more than generous in raising the limit to 
11 seven." 

But the man who is showing mercy according to some 
footrule, keeping tab on the number of times he has over- 
looked the faults of his fellows, is not in the mood to show 
genuine forgiveness. " It profits little," Moody used to 
say, " to bury the hatchet and leave the handle sticking 
out." In the great moral order there is no Heavenly For- 
giveness Company Limited, and among men there can be no 
fixed specifications as to the practice of mercy. 

Jesus answered, " I say not seven times but seventy 
times seven." This meant that forgiveness was to be re- 
peated indefinitely, for no man would think of setting down 
the particular instances when he had shown himself mag- 
nanimous toward an offender until the account stood 
" four hundred and ninety " and then suspend payment of 
mercy due. " We are to forgive whenever we can — as 
often as the wrong-doer gives us an opportunity." 

The Master told them a short story bearing on this duty. 
A certain king had a subject who owed him eleven mil- 
lions of dollars. When that subject failed financially the 
king generously forgave him all that debt and released him 
from the obligation. But this subject had a fellow-subject 
who owed him twenty-five dollars, and when this debtor 
was similarly straightened his hard-hearted creditor said, 



456 THE MASTER'S WAY 

"Pay me what thou owest"; and then took him by the 
throat and cast him into prison. 

What frightful ingratitude and inconsistency! Alas for 
those who expect that the eleven millions of faulty 
deeds charged against them in the moral accounts of the 
world will be overlooked by the divine compassion and 
then go out visiting a fierce condemnation upon the petty 
offenses of others! How far they are from the king- 
dom of God! How far they must travel before they 
come within sight of that Cross where he hung and 
prayed, " Father, forgive them for they know not what 
they do." 

It was a man high in the civil life of our country, the 
chief executive of one of our great cities, who said, " I 
forgive everybody, everything, every night." It is the only 
way. Hatred, bitterness, cherished grudges have no useful 
place in life. The forgiving heart alone wins those reac- 
tions, perpendicular and horizontal, which have abiding 
worth. And our own need of mercy should prompt us all to 
the steady exercise of mercy, for if we from our hearts 
forgive not every one his trespasses neither will our Heav- 
enly Father forgive us. 

We maintain a kind of ethical bimetalism in our treat- 
ment of certain faults committed by men and by women. 
Some man in early life may step aside from the path of 
purity yet return and become again a respected member of 
society. But the woman once having stepped aside re- 
ceives no such favor. This is partly due to the higher 
standard of purity set for woman — it is none too high, yet 
it should be matched by one for men equally high. But it 
is due much more to the large measure of ready scorn 
heaped upon the erring woman even by her own sex. 
And by that harsh, unthinking, unyielding censure the 
offender may speedily be hardened into brazen effrontery 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 457 

where she hurls back the world's scorn in an open defiance 
of all regard for decency. 

It would cost something in courage, in self-sacrifice, in 
patient affection for the good women of her acquaintance 
by their delicate, merciful consideration and undiscouraged 
moral interest to exercise that power of Christian absolu- 
tion named by the Master in this passage — true forgive- 
ness always costs, as the world saw once for all on Calvary 
— but their joy and their reward in loosing that soul from 
her sin would be great. 

It is to that merciful disposition that Jesus entrusts 
" the keys of the kingdom." The practice of mercy opens 
the way for men into the favor of God even as the lack of 
it shuts them out by fixing their feet more firmly in the path 
of evil. It is not for Christian society to shrink from this 
high responsibility nor to abdicate its rights. Let it rather 
put the shoes from off its feet as standing on holy ground 
and exercise this power of binding and of loosing. It can 
by its own bearing fix wrongdoers more hopelessly in the 
power of their sin or it can aid them in finding glad re- 
lease. 

We shall most readily gain and retain the merciful mood 
by frankly confessing our own sins in the presence of the 
Infinite Mercy. The glaring fault of the Pharisee lay in 
the fact that he was altogether too ready to recognize and 
confess other men's faults, meanwhile neglecting the plain 
duty of first sweeping his own dooryard. " God, I thank 
thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, 
adulterers." His statement may have been well within the 
facts. He probably had never committed any of the 
wrongs there named. His Outward life made a better 
showing, no doubt, than that of the poor publican in the 
rear. But confession of sin like charity begins at home. 
The fact of moral failure is universal and each man 



458 THE MASTER'S WAY 

enters into a new dignity when he frankly confesses his own 
need of forgiveness, standing ready meanwhile to extend 
the same mercy to his fellows. How many of you read 
" De Profundis," a cry from the depths, by Oscar Wilde? 
Overtaken by disgrace unspeakable, a criminal in Reading 
Gaol, he drew back the curtains of his soul and allowed the 
world to look in. There are passages in his book as search- 
ing as anything in the " Imitation." And near the end he 
says, " The highest moment in a man's life is when he 
kneels in the dust and beats upon his breast and tells all 
the sins of his life." We feel our need of mercy and we 
do pray for it; and that same prayer should teach us all 
the mood of mercy. 



LXXVI 

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 

Mark 11 : 1-11 

Jesus came as a Prophet revealing his truth to the minds 
of men. He came as a Priest laying upon the altar of 
service the acceptable offering of his own life. He came as 
a King asserting the sovereignty of his spirit over the wills 
of men. The narratives of his " triumphal entry " take up 
this last aspect of his work, recalling the time when he 
was welcomed to the capital city of his nation with ho- 
sannas. The streets of Jerusalem rang with the cry, 
11 Blessed is the king that cometh in the name of the 
Lord." 

He visited five places in connection with that entry. 
They are significant as to his purpose for this many-sided 
life of ours, throwing light upon the inclusiveness of his 
redemptive aim. 

He first laid his hand on a bit of property. He boldly 
claimed it for his own high purpose. " Go into the village 
and find a colt tied whereon no man ever sat. Loose him 
and bring him. If any one say unto you, ' Why do ye 
this? ' say ye, ' The Lord hath need of him.' " 

It was the Master's custom to walk, his own two feet 
carrying him on his errands of mercy. But on this occasion 
he would enter the city mounted in fulfillment of an an- 
cient prediction as to the approach of the Messiah. He 
would assert his Messianic character by a significant act 
which the whole multitude could see. To do this he must 
have the ass — he had need of that bit of property. 

459 



460 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Let the ass stand as a modest representative of the 
material values of the world. The Lord has need of them 
all. His purpose for the race can only be achieved as 
these materials are yielded to him in willing consecration. 
The farms and the mines, the stores and the shops, the 
railroads and the steamships, must yield to the mastery of 
his spirit and be administered with reference to the high 
ends of human well-being which he held steadily in view. 
The whole industrial framework of society must be made 
the subject of a higher consecration that his will may be 
done on earth as it is done in heaven. He therefore laid 
his hand upon that bit of property claiming it for his 
use and asserting his kingship in the realm of material 
values. 

He entered the capital city of his nation, the center of 
its political life, asserting his kingship — " He went before 
going up to Jerusalem." When he rode through its streets 
his friends hailed him as a king though he wore no crown, 
carried no scepter, displayed none of the usual symbols of 
authority. He accepted the designation, gladly remarking 
that if the childlike minds of those who loved him had 
held their peace at such an hour, the stones of the street 
would have become vocal in hailing his sovereignty. 

The political institutions of any people are meant to 
express the sentiments and principles which make for hu- 
man well-being. In the higher exercise of their citizenship 
men are bent upon realizing the claim that " the powers 
that be are ordained of God." They are seeking to make 
the civil government a finite copy of the infinite moral 
order of the universe. 

It is natural, therefore, for Christ to assert his sover- 
eignty in the field of political interest. The State must be 
ruled not by the Church — God forbid — but by Christian 
principles and ideals, by the potency of the Christian spirit 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 461 

safeguarding the deeper interests of all men from the lowest 
to the highest. 

The moral government of all those forms of activity 
which make up our political life must be taken upon his 
shoulder. They can rest securely on no less august a 
foundation. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, " all the city 
was moved." When the spirit and method of his life enter 
effectively into the life of a modern city, it too is moved — 
moved to higher levels of thought and action. In the 
progress of his Kingdom the civic interests must finally 
hail him as Master and cry with all the other forces of a 
renewed civilization, " Blessed is the King that cometh in 
the name of the Lord." 

He went into the place of worship in Jerusalem. He 
found the Temple filled with noisy, dickering traders and 
money changers. The place which should stand pre- 
eminently for the diffusion of spiritual values had dropped 
to a low level under the weight of human greed. He rose 
up in his indignation and drove out the unclean, grasping 
horde, restoring the atmosphere of sincere devotion, making 
his Father's house once more " a house of prayer." He 
thus asserted his mastery over the worship of his nation. 

The life that is to do justly and love mercy must for 
its renewal and reenforcement go apart ever and anon to 
walk humbly before God. The attitude of reverent trust, 
the upward look and reach of a holier aspiration, the sense 
of immediate handclasp with forces not of this earth — 
all this is demanded by the soul which would live nobly. 
Jesus knew how essential is this higher employ of human 
faculty and he boldly asserted his sovereignty over that 
universal instinct. 

The results of his work are apparent. He has entered 
the heathen temples where ignorance was bowing before 
hideous idols. He does not upbraid the misguided souls — 



462 THE MASTER'S WAY 

he quietly removes the idols, turning the attention of 
worshipers to himself as he says: " He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father. Worship the Father, in spirit and in truth." 

He visited the place of instruction. Luke tells us that 
after he entered the city he was teaching daily " and all 
the people were very attentive to hear him." In the Orient 
the work of instruction is much less formal than it is 
under these western skies. Socrates gathered his pupils 
about him in the market place. In the University- of Cairo 
you will see today teachers seated in the square adjoining 
one of the Mosques with groups of pupils about them in 
the open air. And the Master was teaching in the open 
court adjoining the Temple asserting his sivereignty over 
the work of instruction. 

The Church and the school are meant to be near neigh- 
bors. The cap and gown of the college man point to the 
ecclesiastical origin of the higher education. Jesus' favorite 
title was " Master." and he called his followers ies," 

that is to say, " learners " in the life he came to mani- 
fest and to impart. 

The chief office of the school is not to impart informa- 
tion or to give technical training to particular faculties or 
to increase the earning power of the individual as he offers 
his training for sale in the market. These by-products 
of the educational process are all incidental to the main 
purpose. The high office of the school is the development, 
the enrichment and the maturing of personality. 
school which is fully aware of itself comes that men may 
have life and have it more abundantly. It seeks to make 
them alive at more points 2 on higher levels, alive in 

more praiseworthy fashion. It was quite in line with his 
vast purpose that Jesus should enter the lists where instruc- 
tion was given and assert there the sovereignty of his own 
purpose and method. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 463 

He went finally to a home. When evening came " he 
went forth out of the city to Bethany and lodged there." 
Bethany was the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. 
It was the nearest approach to a real home (aside from his 
boyhood's home in Nazareth) which the Son of Man with 
nowhere to lay his head had found. And here the last 
supreme act of the day was to go out to Bethany and lay 
his hand in blessing upon the most fundamental of all 
human institutions. 

The various experiences indicated above all came in the 
day's work, but the climax is significant. When Jesus had 
asserted his sovereignty over the industrial life of the world 
by claiming the consecration of its property; when he had 
ridden into the capital city of his nation as a King, in- 
sisting upon the reign of a higher law in civic life; when 
he had cleansed the Temple of its unworthy elements, 
making it once more a place of spiritual helpfulness; when 
he had as the world's Greatest Teacher swept aside the 
petty quibbles of the ecclesiastics and the scholastics, 
setting forth that vital truth which makes men free — 
when he had done all this, then he gave himself to the 
home whose alabaster box of uncalculating love has filled 
the earth with its fragrance. 

The choicest product of his beneficent rule in human 
affairs is to be found in the Christian home. Has Mo- 
hammedan Turkey or Hindoo India anything worthy to be 
set beside the Christian home where wife and children find 
their full honor and opportunity? Let the God who an- 
swers by such fair exhibits of his power as are to be found 
in the Christian home, be God! 

When the picturesque swamis at the Parliament of Relig- 
ions in Chicago were telling us what their respective faiths 
had done for the world, they had nothing to say about 
what those faiths had accomplished for the home. There 



464 THE MASTER'S WAY 

was nothing to be said. It would have brought a coldness 
over the meeting had the point been raised. But within 
our Christian civilization there is no mightier agent of re- 
demption than the consecrated home honored and blessed 
by the presence of Christ within its walls. 

We stand here in the twentieth century better able to 
appreciate the full royalty of the nature of Christ because 
of what we have seen in the ages since of the blessed re- 
sults of his reign. What should be our response? Let 
it come in a more complete devotement of our total life 
to this King of kings! Let Church and State, market-place 
and school and, best of all, the home, stand together 
in glad allegiance before him, crying, " Hosanna! Blessed 
is the king that cometh in the name of the Lord." 



LXXVII 
" AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT " 

Mark 11 : 12-33; Luke 13 : 6-9 

In this story of the barren fig tree, it has seemed to 
many Bible students that the teaching of a certain parable 
has gotten mixed up with what might have been regarded 
as an inexplicable miracle. We read in Mark's gospel that 
the Master " seeing a fig tree afar off covered with leaves 
came to it if haply he might find fruit thereon." But it 
proved to be fruitless, having " nothing but leaves." He 
then said to it: " No man shall eat fruit of thee hereafter 
forever." And his disciples heard it. 

We read in Luke's gospel, " He spake also this parable. 
A certain man had a fig tree. He came and sought fruit 
thereon and found none. He then said to the vinedresser, 
Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig 
tree and find none. Cut it down. Why cumbereth it the 
ground? " But at the vinedresser's request he allowed it 
to stand one year more, allowing time to dig about it and 
fertilize it, with the understanding that if it then bore fruit 
it should remain — if not, it should be cut down. 

It would be difficult for us to believe that Jesus " cursed 
the fig tree " (as some have claimed), blasting its life with 
a word and dooming it to death. Difficult for several 
reasons : 

First of all because the narrative does not say that he 
" cursed " it. Peter referred to the matter the following 
day, saying, " The fig tree which thou cursed is withered 
away," but a number of inaccurate remarks fell from the 

465 



466 THE MASTER'S WAY 

lips of the impulsive Peter. He spoke unadvisedly with 
his lips on several occasions, " not knowing what he 
said." 

In the second place it would attribute to Jesus an ac- 
tion apparently wanton and petulant, entirely out of 
character with the Master's moods and methods. 

And last of all, the poor fig tree was not at fault — 
"It was not the season of figs." This was in April. The 
earliest figs came in June, and the ordinary crop in August. 

The whole idea of having Jesus use his supernatural 
power to blast a helpless tree because he had not found 
figs upon it several months before any of the trees in that 
region bore figs, becomes repugnant both to the intelli- 
gence and to the moral sense. The real truth of the mat- 
ter seems to lie about here — the tree was abnormally full 
of leaves. And Jesus used it as a symbol of those lives 
which belie their profession. 

He used the tree as an object lesson suggesting a truth 
particularly applicable to the Jews of that day. Their 
moral attitude was one which flowered forth abundantly 
with the promise of fruitfulness. But when judged by a 
demand for the recognizable fruits of the Spirit, " love, 
joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, 
mildness and self-control " they also belied their profes- 
sions. And the word of censure not strictly applicable to 
the tree which was unable to show fruit " out of season " 
was a fitting word of judgment to be pronounced upon 
the leaders in the Jewish Church who were at that hour 
reaching the climax of spiritual blindness and unfruitfulness 
in plotting against the Chosen One of Israel. 

" By their fruits ye shall know them." Not by the 
leaves, nor by the twigs, nor by the roots, which are all 
but means to an end! "By their fruits" — by that 
which they give off to meet the need of a hungry world. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 467 

It is by this rule that fruit trees and moral beings as well 
are to be tested. 

The fig tree stood in Bethany and the Master with his 
disciples passed over the brow of the Mount of Olives and 
came into the city. " He entered into the Temple," and 
found it defiled by the hateful presence of that sordid, 
mercenary spirit everywhere fatal to devotion. No man 
can serve God and Mammon anywhere, least of all in the 
courts of the Lord's house. 

The tables of the greedy, grasping money changers were 
there. Every Jew was required to pay annually the half- 
shekel for the support of the Temple and it had to be 
paid in Jewish coin. The pilgrims from afar coming up to 
the Feast of the Passover brought Gentile money, and the 
conversion of their coin into Hebrew currency by these 
shrewd, conscienceless money changers had become a 
profitable trade. Their greed had edged its way into the 
very place of prayer. 

The men who bought and sold doves to be used in 
making the offerings according to Jewish law were also 
there. They were driving hard bargains with the religious 
devotees who had come long distances to enjoy the sacred 
privilege of making their offering in the place where they 
believed the divine honor dwelt. Greed and Fraud had 
been adding cubits to their stature until these base quali- 
ties in those grasping men stood up like two ugly demons 
in some heathen temple. They defiled the holy place. 
They destroyed the mood of devotion. 

It was a horrible sight which met the eyes of the Master 
when he entered that place of worship of which Solomon 
had said: "Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee 
in heaven above or on earth beneath, who keepest cove- 
nant and mercy with thy servants! Hearken thou to the 
supplication of thy servant and of thy people Israel when 



4:> THE MASTER'S WAY 

they shall pray in this place! Hear thou in heaven thy 
dwelling place, and when thou nearest, forgi* It was a 

horrible sight and Jesus cried out, '"Is it not written. My 
house shall be called of all nations, the house of prayer? 
but ye have made it a den of thiev : s He rose up in 
his wrath and drove them all out. 

We have here "' the wrath of the lamb " and we need 
not offer any word of apology for that indignation. Any 
darkening of the world by cruelty* or craft brought his 
soul to its feet fiery -eyed and defiant." as Dr. Jeflers.r. 
puts it. ' The sordid wretches who cared nothing for an- 
thems and prayers and everything for money kindled a 
fire in him which well-nigh consumed him. The mis- 
creants wh: fled before him had never seen such a flame 
as darted from his eyes. That a building erected for the 
purpose of adorning the name of God should be converted 
into a market was so abhorrent to his great soul that he 
swept onward into action which astounded his disciples 
and which has been tc many minds a scandal ever since." 

" Xo one can understand the cleansing of the Temple 
who has never experienced the force and heat of righteous 
indignation. If wood does not burn, it is because it is 
green or rotten. If hearts do not burn with holy fire against 
wickedness, it is because the heart is too undeveloped to 
:ee. what rr.ar arts were meant to feel cr beca 

core of the hear: has been eaten out by the base practices 
of a godless lire." 

It was a blow between the eyes for the corrupt ecc". 
astics. ' The scribes and chief priests heard it and soug 
how they might destroy him, but they feared the people 
because all the people were astonished at his doctrine." 
Officialdom was against him habitually because its deeds 
were evil and he was 2 shining light cast upon their moral 
deformities. But the unwarped instincts of the common 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 469 

people made response to his appeal and stood ready to 
array themselves on his side. 

" Every evening he went forth out of the city," spending 
the night in the grateful atmosphere of that home of 
peace in Bethany. When he and his disciples returned 
the following morning and saw the fig tree which had been 
abnormally full of leaves now withering away, Peter re- 
marked upon it. Jesus said to him: " Have faith in God! 
Whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou taken up 
and cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, 
but shall believe in his heart that what he saith cometh to 
pass, he shall have it." 

Here is another of those bold metaphors used to indi- 
cate the stupendous results achieved by unwavering faith! 
The Master was not thinking of removing so many thou- 
sand cubic yards of earth as a contractor might in exca- 
vating for the foundation of a building. There is no record 
that Jesus or that any of his disciples ever attempted to 
move a mountain by faith except in the figurative sense 
suggested by this striking statement. But in preparing 
the way of the Lord, in making straight in the desert a 
highway for our God, in lifting up the morally low and in 
leveling down the interfering pride, so that the path of 
the coming Kingdom may be smooth, the stupendous moral 
results there symbolized have been and are being accom- 
plished by believing men in every country in Christendom. 

" Have faith in God." When I was in college in a cer- 
tain eastern city I used to see those great brave words 
set in letters of gold in a marble slab on the front of a 
hospital. It was a Christian hospital, and hundreds of 
sufferers borne thither in the ambulance or assisted up the 
walk by loving friends looked up at those words and were 
reassured as they passed in at the door. The One who 
forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases was 



470 THE MASTER'S WAY 

there at work. He was blending his infinite energy with 
the benign skill and the tender sympathy of human hands 
and human hearts. They all wrought together for the 
same high end. 

11 Have faith in God." They are good words to engrave 
on a building devoted to healing or on the walls of a 
home devoted to Christian nurture or on the fleshy tables 
of an individual heart intent upon values which endure. 
It is for us to aim boldly for that simple, original po- 
tency of vital faith in God here suggested. This potency 
was clearly present in the Christianity of that age which 
stood close to the Master. It is meant to be the perpetual 
inheritance of the whole race of believing men. 



LXXVIII 
11 LOVING IS THE SECRET OF RIGHT LIVING " 

Mark 12 : 28-44 

In an earlier chapter we saw the Master silencing 
the Herodians, the Pharisees and the Sadducees by his 
wise answers. The people " marveled greatly at him," 
and the quibblers had been impelled to hold their peace. 
Now a scribe thinks that he would like to try his hand. 
11 One of the scribes heard them questioning together 
and knowing that he had answered them well, asked of 
him, What commandment is first? " 

Jesus had been asked all sorts of questions, crafty ques- 
tions, malicious questions, foolish questions, shallow ques- 
tions, impossible questions. Here comes a question worthy 
of the Master's attention. What commandment stands 
first? What is the one great underlying principle of right- 
eousness to which all ethical considerations must be finally 
adjusted? 

It was indeed " a great far-reaching question repre- 
senting a man at his best." This man was not in the 
mood to deal with the mint, anise and cummin of religion, 
with the pepper, the mustard and the allspice on the table 
of the Lord — he was reaching for that meat which comes 
down from above to give life unto the world. " Which 
is the greatest commandment in the law? " In the face 
of such a question the Master will not as at other times 
skillfully seek to extricate himself from some dilemma into 
which malicious questioners were seeking to force him. He 
speaks home to the heart of the questioner. 

471 



472 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is One." These 
are the words which are chanted above the cradle of every 
newborn Jewish child Here was Israel's great affirmation 
in the face of the debasing idolatry and polytheism which 
degraded the religious cults of men when the words first 
rang out! Here is Israel's great contribution to the relig- 
ious thought of each succeeding age! 

' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and love thy neighbor as thyself.'' There is no other 
command greater than this. " Loving is the secret of right 
living." as Dr. Bridgman puts it. Out of the heart are 
the issues of life and out of a loving heart come right 
issues. 

The ancient code was too largely negative. It was 
made up in the main of prohibitions. It said, ' Thou 
shalt not." Thou shalt not kill, steal, lie, swear, covet or 
commit adultery. But the code of Christ is positive. 
It says. " Thou shalt love." Would you know what is the 
first commandment of all? Love God and love men — 
on these two positive commands hang the moral injunc- 
tions of all the prophets of all time. 

The Master specified four main elements in the love 
men are to show toward God. ' Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with 
all thy mind and with all thy strength." It was a love 
which, like the ideal order John saw descending out of 
heaven from God. stood four-square, facing directly upon 
every conceivable aptitude and interest. 

" The great commandment makes room for all these 
wide diversities." says Dean Hodges. ' The strongest 
part of one man is the strength of his arm — he can do 
nothing so well as to pull and lift and push. Another 
man is a great deal better at thinking than he is at lifting; 
cares more for books than for blocks of wood or steel; 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 473 

handles a pen more skillfully than any other tool; is best 
at whatever occupies the energies of the mind. Other 
people attain their highest possibilities in their affections; 
cannot manage very heavy weights nor make out very 
difficult problems, but are strong in believing, gifted with 
great capacity for trusting, blessed with deep and warm 
affections. Different natures approach God from different 
sides." 

Arid the man who in more mystical fashion makes his 
approach to God in pure spiritual aspiration and in yearn- 
ing for the sense of fellowship with the Eternal, makes his 
characteristic contribution to that fourfold love which is 
to bind the movements of the race " as with gold chains 
about the feet of God." 

In studying this passage it is well to bear in mind the 
fact that in the New Testament two different words are 
used for " love." The love which is denoted by the Greek 
word " agapao " means the love of an intelligent good will. 
The love denoted by the word " phileo " is a more ardent 
term and means the close affection of a warm heart. We 
love God and we love our neighbors with the first form of 
love. " God so loved the world as to give his only be- 
gotten Son " with the first form of love. 

But when the New Testament speaks of the love Jesus 
had for Lazarus — " Behold, how he loved him"; and 
when it says, " He that loveth son or daughter more than 
me," it uses the second term as indicating a close personal 
relation. It is significant that when we are commanded to 
'■ love our enemies," it is the former word which is used — 
it is to be the love of choice and of an intelligent good 
will rather than the unstudied feeling of the heart flowing 
out inevitably toward the objects of an intimate affection. 

When this serious-minded scribe heard the direct answer 
of Jesus to his request for the fundamental principle in 



474 THE MASTER'S WAY 

right living he remarked: " Master, thou hast well said 
that he is One and there is none other but he. And to 
love him and to love one's neighbor as one's self is more 
than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." He had the gist 
of it. No man is far from the Kingdom of God who under- 
stands that the supreme thing in religion is its moral re- 
quirement rather than its ritual observance and orders his 
life by that sense of values. 

In that age when formalism had all but smothered real 
religion it was refreshing to hear such a word from the 
lips of a scribe. Jesus commended him for getting beneath 
the millinery and the ruffling that lay at the surface of the 
conventional worship in order to lay his hand on the warm, 
throbbing flesh of real religion. " When Jesus saw that he 
answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far 
from the Kingdom of God." And after that no man dared 
ask him any questions. His skill in parrying their crafty 
attacks, and his straightforwardness in meeting the honest 
seeker after truth with light in which there was no dark- 
ness at all, dispelled the mood for further questioning. 

He then spoke to them of how far his own worth tran- 
scended the conventional homage easily accorded him. 
" How say the scribes that the Messiah is the Son of 
David? " Jesus insisted that his title to recognition lay 
much deeper than the mere fact of Davidic descent. He 
quoted from one of their psalms where David is repre- 
sented as calling the Messiah " Lord." "If David then 
call him Lord, how is he his son? " The Messiah in his 
own person possessed that which entirely transcended the 
claims of one whose title to exaltation rested mainly upon 
the fact that he was descended from the house and lineage 
of David — he possessed that character which warranted 
him in asserting his right to be David's Lord. 

The chapter closes with the beautiful bit about the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 475 

poor widow with her two mites which make a farthing. 
The Master had warned his disciples against the showy 
pretensions of certain insincere ecclesiastics. " Beware of 
the scribes who desire to walk in long robes and have 
salutations in the market place and chief seats in the syna- 
gogue, but devour widows' houses and for a pretense make 
long prayers." And as he sat over against the treasury, 
he saw the people casting in their money and many that 
were rich cast in much. But in striking contrast there 
came " one poor widow and she threw in two mites." 
" A single, solitary, sorrowful, poverty-stricken figure lost 
in the passing crowds but filling the Master's eye." 

" This poor widow hath cast in more than they all." 
More what? Not more money surely — no sort of higher 
mathematics could make that out. The computation was 
made by one who has measures of value which commerce 
knows not of. He looked not on the outward appearance 
or upon the money value of a gift, but upon its heart. 

"She hath cast in more than they all" — more love, 
more self-sacrifice, more of that inner devotion to the God 
of those high values for the furtherance of which the 
offering was being made. When the Master added up the 
columns of figures which his own discerning heart set 
down, and struck a trial balance, it was manifest that the 
largest gift made that day stood to the credit of the poor 
widow who brought two mites. 

Loving is the secret of right living and loving is the 
secret of great giving. Loving is great giving. "If there 
first be a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a 
man hath and not according to what he hath not." Here 
are the terms of the comparison as Jesus viewed it — 
"They of their superfluity — she of her want." It was 
not a question as to which gift weighed most on the scales, 
but which one loved most from the heart. 



476 THE MASTER'S WAY 

How completely Jesus answered and vanquished his 
detractors! They never surprised or forced him into a 
foolish word or into an unseemly mood. They were always 
laying in wait " that they might catch him in his talk." 
but they never did. 

" Pharisees. Sadducees. Herodians. Lawyers, do not 
trouble yourselves about tribute money and questions of 
family relationship! Ask deep questions, grand questions, 
massive questions. Get up into the higher region of think- 
ing and there learn how possible it is for reason to blossom 
into faith and for the hard, literal intellect to bow down 
in tender homage before the Infinite God." He was " the 
truth." He heard all their questions and then spake to 
them as never man spake. 



LXXIX 

THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS 
Matt. 25 : 31-46 

Here is a passage to be read, pondered, obeyed, rather 
than discussed. We fear to cloud the issue if we under- 
take to expound it. Let us sit down rather, and allow 
its own majestic phrases and compelling truths to have 
their way with us for the hour. 

Where in all the Master's teachings has he portrayed 
a scene more august? The setting he gives his truth is 
stately. " The Son of Man shall come in his glory and all 
the holy angels with him." Here is a celestial visitant at- 
tended by his heavenly court. " He shall sit upon the 
throne of his glory." Here is One who bears with him the 
authoritative standards of that upper world. " Before 
him shall be gathered all nations." It is a universal assize 
— there shall be no speech nor language where this judg- 
ment shall not take effect. This method of moral dis- 
crimination shall go out through all the earth and its 
divisions to the end of the world. 

We have here the picture of a universal, cosmic process 
brought within the limits of a canvas which can be framed 
in human speech and human perception. The principle of 
humane consideration for one's fellows is in automatic 
fashion continually separating the sheep from the goats. 
It was so from the beginning, is now and ever shall be, 
world without end. The readiness or the lack of readiness 
to meet the demand for humane service is forever setting 

477 



478 THE MASTER'S WAY 

men at the right hand or on the left of that awarding 
authority which sits supreme in the heavens. 

" He shall separate them one from another.' He is 
constantly doing just that. The three familiar passages 
in this chapter of Matthew's Gospel portray under varying 
forms of action the everlasting process of separation at 
work. He is dividing the wise from the foolish, the produc- 
tive from the slothful, the generous from the selfish. The 
two parables of the Virgins and of the Talents, together 
with this sublime scene of judgment, are all meant to bring 
out the same truth that moral discriminations are being 
made by the One who speaks as having authority. 

The principle upon which the award is made is the cen- 
tral, vital truth oft emphasized in this passage. Here is the 
Master of the Ages making bold to assert that acceptance 
or rejection in the Day of Judgment will turn upon the 
presence or the absence of the spirit and practice of genu- 
ine kindness. The rating given by One who assumes to 
sit upon the throne of glory, gathering the nations before 
him. proceeds upon the principle that men are to be judged 
according to the treatment they have dealt out to their 
weaker fellows. 

It was a brave thing to say in the face of that religious 
world which had gone to seed in its passion for orthodoxies. 
rituals and other ecclesiastical machinery. It was not the 
way men were to be judged according to the views held 
by his contemporaries. But Jesus was not the child of his 
age — he was :he Son of God. Not according to the 
mode by which men worship, not according to the techni- 
cal correctness of their philosophical interpretations of 
spiritual reality, not according to the measure of outward 
rctability they exhibit in their avoidance of the coarser 
sins of the flesh, are men to be judged in the last day. 
They are to be judged by their humanity as it has found 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 479 

expression or has failed to find expression in such generous, 
kindly, effective service of human need as is here portrayed. 

How modern it sounds when we read it out loud. It 
might have been written yesterday. What a rebuke it 
brings to those who cast aspersions upon the Church of 
Christ, claiming everything for " the social emphasis in 
modern life." One would think sometimes that social 
service must have been invented over night by some of 
these nervously irreligious humanitarians. Here in these 
words uttered by the Master well-nigh two thousand years 
ago is a great principle, to which all our humanitarian 
propaganda must look for inspiration and ethical warrant. 
14 Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these ye have done it unto me." 

44 I was hungry," he said, " and ye gave me meat. I 
was thirsty and ye gave me drink. I was a stranger and 
ye took me in. I was sick and ye visited me. I was in 
prison and ye came unto me." He is taking the whole 
mass of human need, physical, social and moral, upon his 
heart in such sympathetic fashion as to make it his own. 
His actual identification of his own feelings with theirs, 
as men suffered in all these forms of human deprivation, 
made it true that service rendered to the needy would be 
service rendered to him. 

44 We try to remember Jesus in many ways," said Allen 
E. Cross. "We build our churches; we sing songs to his 
name; we take the bread and wine at communion; and 
so we try to bring to life again the Lord Jesus and come 
close to him. Jesus seems to say in this passage: 4 If 
you would remember me, remember your needy fellows. 
If you would do anything for me, do it for them. If 
you would serve me, serve them. If you forget them and 
deny them, you forget me and deny me.' He puts him- 
self in their place so completely that he makes every act 



480 THE MASTER'S WAY 

of kindness on our part a sacrament of remembrance. 
What I may call its sacramental value is to me the dearest 
and most beautiful quality of this test." 

His words fairly staggered the minds of those to whom he 
spoke. The words would stagger us had not long use and 
familiarity dulled our minds to their incisive quality. 
The people were amazed that the poor, hungry, ragged, 
diseased, nameless (and ofttimes imprisoned) beggars they 
saw about the streets were actually the objects of the divine 
concern. His identification of himself with their need 
bewildered them. 

" We saw thee hungry? Lord, when? " To picture 
that multitude of needy folk whose names are on the rec- 
ords of the Associated Charities, and ever and anon on the 
books of the police court, " as one gigantic personage and 
that personage himself, was a flight of the poetic imagina- 
tion so audacious and difficult " as to make it well-nigh 
impossible for the plodding, literal mind to follow him. 

The kindly, generous people who had been ministering 
to human need so effectively as to merit his " Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world," were puzzled at 
the audacity of his statement. They were uncertain as to 
its implications. " Lord, when? ,! It had become the 
habit of their lives to feed and to clothe, to visit and to 
relieve the needy, but they were not aware of the lofty 
spiritual significance of such humane service. " They 
lived in a Presence they did not see." They had caught 
the Christ-spirit all unaware of its ultimate source. 

The habitual and spontaneous quality of the service 
rendered is brought out by those words, " Lord, when? ' 
" The righteous did not know that they had been doing 
all this — therefore it was not done for the purpose of 
securing some happy end. They had wholly forgotten the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 481 

beneficent activities attributed to them — therefore they 
had not been mere legalists, obeying the letter of a law and 
endeavoring to set up by penance or gift some claim to the 
ultimate clemency of heaven. They had been simply 
breathing a spirit, embodying an aspiration, setting out in 
beautiful daily life that which was internal and vital. It 
was part of their nature, and had become such by minis- 
tries we call divine and spiritual." 

How definite this passage makes the ideal of fellowship 
with Christ. " The seeming unreality of the spiritual life," 
as President King phrases it, need not disturb the mind of 
the man who has entered sympathetically into the high 
mood of the life here portrayed. If you would know him, 
then know by unselfish and sympathetic ministry all these 
forms of need with which in mystical fashion he has 
identified himself. 

" Have I been so long a time with you, Philip," or 
Thomas, Henry, Richard, " and yet hast thou not known 
me? " Have you seen no hungry lives in your community? 
Have you found no strange and lonely lives in your city 
craving friendship? Have you heard of none who were ill, 
awaiting the ministry of human skill and love? Have there 
been none imprisoned within their own evil habits and by 
the bars of men, needing deliverance? He that has known 
and served these aright has known and served me. How 
sayest thou then, " Show us"? 

You may have seen some man like Horace Bentley, 
who went about among the poor and needy that he might 
minister to their lack. He was eyes to the blind and feet 
to the lame. He was a father to the poor, and the case 
that he knew not he searched out. He caused the widow's 
heart to sing for joy, and the blessing of one who was 
ready to perish came upon him. And when you looked 
closely upon those to whom he ministered, you saw in 



482 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the midst of them another whose form was like unto that 
of the Son of God. And this ancient Scripture was there 
fulfilled before your eyes. 

These words of Christ were uttered to indicate the 
fundamental principle upon which all nations of men are 
to be judged, rather than to serve as a detailed program 
of the future world. It is to be noted, however, with the 
utmost seriousness, that the Merciful One said of those 
who had been observing the law of kindness, " These 
shall go into life eternal "; and of those who had failed to 
serve, " These shall go away into everlasting punishment." 
Take heed, therefore, how ye live! 



LXXX 

A STUDY IN VALUES 

Mark 14 : 1-11 

" Look at the picture! A meal served in the house of 
Simon because his house was commodious! The Master 
in the place of honor, the disciples near him! Martha 
waiting at table! Lazarus looking out on things with the 
light of his second life in his eyes! Mary with the inner 
vision of a loving heart reading in the Master's face a 
shadow of things to come! A hush in the talking, Mary 
kneeling at the Master's feet, the broken vase, the perfume 
floating through the room! " 

" There was a silence in which love eternal was trying 
to say something to each man's heart," said Percy Ains- 
worth. u Then the first man to break the silence was the 
man to whom the silence had said nothing. ' It might 
have been sold ' — and we feel that vandal feet have 
trampled the vase and its precious contents into the dust. 
The roar of the market place has swept into the sanctuary 
of one worshiping, love-laden, life-laden moment." 

"It might have been sold." How blind the man was! 
He had held the bag so long and so tight that now the 
bag held him. He could not see out. There was nothing 
in his vision at that moment but pieces of money. Man 
does not live by cash alone — Mary had learned that 
priceless lesson but Judas had not. Mary had been sitting 
at the feet of the Master, instructed in the higher mathe- 
matics which dealt with values which Judas knew not of. 

Judas knew the market price of perfume and alabaster. 

483 



THE MASTER'S WAY 

Mary knew som g of the abiding worth of dev 

action. The man who blindly undertakes to reduce love 
values and spiritual worth to terms of dollars and cents has 
already betrayed his Lord. He has already gone out into 
the darkness where it is night. He is on his way to that 
moral state where it were better that he had not been 
born. 

"It might have been sold" — there are a great many 
things (and those the choicest things in life) which cannot 
be sold. They are given away — they cannot be had on 
any other terms. The woman's kiss of affection, the 
mother's devoted self-sacrifice, the life blood of the patriot, 
the generous friendship of an uncalculating heart — tit 
things cannot be bought and sold as if they were meat and 
potatoes. 

This man Judas was coarse and vulgar in the extreme. 
In a lovely scene like that, all he could see or say was, 
1 It might have been sold." And the newly rich who go 
about with a look in their eyes and a tilt in their beari::^" 
which say as plainly as words could put it. " We are able 
to buy whatever we want; we have the cash." are no 
less coarse and vulgar. The houses they inhabit have 
never been filled with the fragrance of Mary's ointment. 

And what a tragic disappointment awaits those who seek 
to buy their way into happiness with cold coin. The 
men who attempt to purchase the poor counterfeit of a 
woman's love on sale in certain dark streets — alas for 
them and alas for the women who traffic in that which 
cannot be priced! The greedy people who undertake to 
purchase social recognition and personal friendships with 
cash down — alas for them also. 

It is a striking fact that both Matthew and Mark bring 
this narrative of the anointing into close connection with 
the first visit Judas made to the Chief Friests on his er- 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 485 

rand of treachery. He did not understand the true mea- 
sure of value in Simon's house. He did not understand the 
true measure of value when he bargained with the cruel 
ecclesiastics. He thought that thirty pieces of silver might 
be a fair price for moral infidelity. How blind he was! 
How little he knew of the circulating medium and the 
standards of value in that kingdom where his Master had 
been striving to make him a naturalized citizen! 

The materialistic appraisement of all the current values 
is too much with us, late and soon. Getting and spending, 
we lay waste our powers. In a certain city where I was 
formerly a pastor the fact was brought out that the alder- 
man from a certain ward had sold his vote on a certain 
important question for five thousand dollars. The citizens 
of that ward held an indignation meeting the following 
week where his action was hotly discussed. And one fervent 
orator, without realizing the humor of his outburst, ex- 
claimed: "Think of this ward being represented by a man 
who could be bought for five thousand dollars! We ought 
to have a man to represent us who could not be bought for 
less than fifty thousand dollars! " His habit of monetary 
appraisement was too much for him, even in his higher 
moods of patriotism. 

The defense offered by Judas was that the price of the 
ointment might have been given to the poor. It was the 
Master's custom to bid men serve him by serving his need- 
ier fellows. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least 
of these, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, 
ye have done it unto me." But he would remind them 
that the opportunity for this humane service was con- 
stantly before them, while the chance to show their per- 
sonal affection for him was passing. " The poor ye have 
always with you — Me ye have not always." 

The humanitarian and utilitarian aspects of conduct are 



486 THE MASTER'S WAY 

not to blind us to the worth of those actions which are 
mainly or solely matters of sentiment. It is good for a 
woman to allow a man to see sometimes how much she 
loves him by some gracious attention which neither feeds 
nor clothes him. It is good for a husband to remember 
that his wife appreciates the bouquet on the table of 
affection as he spreads it for her almost as much as she 
does the roast beef. 

"She hath wrought a beautiful" — that was the word 
he used — "she hath wrought a beautiful work on me." 
The ministry of art has its standing in the house of the 
Lord no less than the ministry of humane service rendered 
according to scientific principles. The man who shoes the 
horse or shoes the poor is not to say to the man who 
paints pictures or writes verses, " I have no use for you." 
And similarly the man who revels in Browning is not to 
sneer at the man who never heard of Sordello, but has 
helped to clean up the city. There are diversities of opera- 
tions by the same Spirit and there are differences of ad- 
ministration by the same Lord. 

And even our ministry to the poor is not to become 
solely utilitarian. The poor do not live by cash alone. 
They are not mere backs and bellies to be clothed and 
filled. They are minds and hearts and souls. They have 
imagination, sensibility, aspiration which crave their meat 
at the hands of thoughtful, kindly interest. The charity 
expert who has never sensed the fragrance of Mary's 
alabaster box is grossly incompetent for his high task. 
Let him read the " Survey " if he will, but let him read 
also the Fourth Gospel. 

The building of a noble church structure to stand per- 
haps for centuries as an object of admiration; the filling 
of a park or a public garden with flowers; the placing of 
long rows of books filled with visions and dreams of a 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 487 

larger world of wisdom on shelves easy of access to all 
hands; the hanging of beautiful canvases on the walls of 
a public art gallery — all these are services rendered to 
the poor, no less to be taken into account than the output 
of the soup kitchen and the free dispensary. 

And the very extravagance, not to say recklessness, of a 
generous action ofttimes adds to its power of appeal. 
The pouring out of seventy-five dollars' worth of perfume 
on the head of him whom she loved caused this woman's 
devotion to be spoken of throughout the world wherever 
the gospel is preached. The uncalculating element in genu- 
ine devotion is one of the elements of its strength. 

We have all been thrilled by those lines on "The Charge 
of the Light Brigade." "It is a brave description of a 
brave ride," as Myron Reed once said. " The colonel got 
his order, gathered the bridle rein and swung himself 
into the saddle, saying, ' Here goes the last of the Cardi- 
gans and thirteen thousand pounds a year.' When a man 
is the eldest son of a lord and has an income of sixty-five 
thousand dollars a year coming to him by and by, that 
means a good deal to lose. When he is called to lay all this 
down for the sake of a forlorn hope against guns double- 
shotted, and obeys instantly, he is a good deal of a soldier." 

Some one has said of that charge, " It was magnificent 
but it was not war." I am not so sure about that — if 
all the heroism and devotion in the world directly inspired 
by " the immortal six hundred " could be finally added up 
in the day of judgment, it might easily appear that the six 
hundred made a royal investment of their lives. The un- 
happy croak, " To what purpose is this waste ? " would be 
instantly refuted. 

" Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die 
Noble six hundred." 



488 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The higher standards of value are clearly brought out 
in this lesson. The sheer beauty of some act of unselfish 
devotion may serve to keep it alive in the memory of the 
race, a potent influence for good, long after the findings of 
a monetary trial balance have been forgotten. The 
11 waste " is not to be assessed against the one who in- 
vests his life in a worthy cause but against the one who in 
11 saving " himself loses himself. 

The book of Numbers is not one of the great books of 
the Bible. There are more exact sciences than that of 
mathematics when we reckon up the enduring values in 
human experience. The pastor does well not to take his 
text too often from that book of Numbers. Let the 
Lord foot up and announce the number of conversions each 
year — he knows how many of them were conversions. 
Let the Lord who watched the people casting their gifts 
into the treasury and placed the only accurate appraise- 
ment given upon the two mites of the poor widow, give the 
final footings in the benevolent offerings of the Church. 
Let the Lord who knows, place his own evaluation upon 
the final worth of the woman's box of alabaster. 



LXXXI 

THE LAST SUPPER 
Mark 14 : 12-25 

The hour had come for the eating of the Passover. The 
last observance for Jesus and for his disciples of that an- 
cient Jewish rite which looked back to the divine mercy in 
the past! The first observance for him and for them 
of that sublime Christian rite opening upon a glorious 
future filled with the same divine mercy! 

He directed his disciples to enter the city and " follow 
a man bearing a pitcher of water." The man would be 
easily recognizable, for the bringing of water for household 
uses was woman's work. The unknown man may have 
been a servant in the house to which he would uncon- 
sciously guide the two disciples. " The unknown man " — 
no, not unknown, for he was known to Christ, who had a 
work for him to do. By his modest, inconspicuous service 
as he bore his water pot through the crowded street he 
fitted into that plan of grace which reached across the ages 
for our redemption. 

They were to follow this man with the pitcher into the 
house where he entered, saying to the owner of the house: 
" The Master saith, Where is the guest chamber where I 
shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shail 
shew you a large upper room, furnished. There make 
ready." 

The house in Palestine as a rule is a simple affair, small, 
flat-roofed, one-storied. But here was a man whose house 
was more spacious — it had in it an upper room, a large 
spare chamber, " the guest chamber," furnished for hos- 

489 



490 THE MASTER'S WAY 

pitality. The man's house and his disposition were both 
known to the Master, who arranged for the paschal feast 
at the home of this friend. 

"He shall shew you a large upper room" — a room 
somewhat away from the noise and dust of the busy street ; 
a room above the touch and power of those things which 
are of the earth earthy; a room lifted higher than the one- 
storied houses adjacent, giving it a wider outlook across the 
broad areas of human life; a room abutting directly upon 
the blue sky and upon all the forces of the upper air. 
He shall shew you that finer opportunity here symbolized 
in the upper room — enter and make ready for the august 
experiences awaiting you! 

" His disciples went forth and came into the city and 
found as he had said unto them." This was the second 
time that week where the fact is noted that they found it 
just as Jesus had said. His words had a way of fulfilling 
themselves in the progress of events. The man who moves 
ahead as the word of Christ points will not be sent on 
fool's errands nor be led into blind alleys. 

" In the evening he cometh with the Twelve." While 
they were eating the paschal lamb with the bitter herbs 
and the unleavened bread, all of them symbolic of experi- 
ences sacred and significant in the history of that Jewish 
race, he suddenly exclaimed, " One of you shall betray 
me." It was like the dropping of a Lyddite shell into their 
midst, destroying the whole atmosphere of peace. 

" They began to be sorrowful." His own sad fate there 
indicated touched their hearts with a sense of alarm and 
foreboding. The thought of such treachery in the inner 
circle of his friends humiliated them. It became a time of 
heart-searching. And every man of them, one after an- 
other, looked straight into his own heart and then into the 
eyes of compassion, saying, " Lord, is it I? " 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 491 

What a testimony to the genuineness of the moral fiber 
in the eleven that not a man of them inquired, " Is it 
hasty, impulsive, fickle Peter? " " Is it the hot-headed, in- 
tense, vindictive John? " " Is it Judas, cold, calculating 
and secretive? " No man cast an eye of suspicion upon 
his fellow — every man searched his own heart for the 
possibility of moral lapse. Out of such honest material 
men can be framed worthy to sit upon thrones of spiritual 
leadership. 

" It is one of the Twelve," Jesus replied. And that 
was the tragedy of it. One of the Twelve! We are not 
surprised at the brutality of the Roman soldiers nor at the 
hateful bigotry of the ruling ecclesiastics nor at the crass 
indifference of the jeering multitudes. But the Twelve! 
They had for three years been the recipients of a trans- 
cendent care and nurture. We are amazed that any man 
of them could show himself so base and ungrateful. " The 
Son of Man goeth as it is written of him" — written in 
their own Scriptures and written in the hard unresponsive- 
ness of the human heart — "but alas for that man by 
whom the Son of Man is betrayed! " His word was not 
one of denunciation but of infinite compassion for such 
moral blindness. 

Then he took bread and blessed it and broke it, giving 
a bit to each of them, saying: " Take, eat. This is my 
body." Likewise he took the cup and when he had given 
thanks he gave it to them, saying, " Drink ye all of it; 
this is my blood." 

It would seem impossible for any open mind to be mis- 
led here into a crude literal use of these bold metaphors. 
Jesus was indicating in the manner habitual with him in 
all his teaching that the quality of life he had manifested 
before them in flesh and blood was not to be admired and 
adored alone — it was to be imparted and assimilated as 



492 THE MASTER'S WAY 

food is assimilated. Those men were to feed upon him 
even as they were eating the bread and drinking the wine 
which he employed as symbols of the life-qualities he would 
have them make their own. He put it vividly and in con- 
crete form rather than in cautious abstract terms because 
he was an Oriental as they were Orientals. This method 
of imparting truth was habitual with him. 

How significant it is that the two sacraments accepted 
by all branches of the Christian Church, baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, rest back upon the two most common acts 
of every-day life, washing and eating. This was char- 
acteristic of Christ's whole method. He would invest the 
commonest acts with sacramental significance and efficacy. 
He would have the usual and habitual hallowed by higher 
associations and made symbolic of august spiritual experi- 
ences. 

The disciples found in that upper room of privilege a 
certain sacred observance. As the old feast was merged 
into the new under the skilled and holy hands of their 
Lord, it took on a deeper meaning. They felt, indeed, that 
what is divine in the realm of the Spirit was not merely 
to be reverenced and worshiped — it was to be shared, 
imparted, appropriated by them as branches of the true 
vine. The minds of those men rose to the thought of a 
splendid experience when he said: "This is my body. 
This is my blood." Their souls opened wide to be fed and 
quickened by that which he offered. There came a sense 
of awe and of humility, of yearning and of aspiration such 
as they had never known before. 

They found also in that upper room more searching 
standards of conduct. " One of you shall betray me." 
His words included more than the mere physical act of 
driving a bargain with his enemies and in return for thirty 
pieces of silver pointing him out in the darkness of the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 493 

Garden where he had gone to pray. It included that act 
of the soul when it delivers over the inner capacity for a 
life like his into the hands of his enemies. The lack of 
fidelity to those higher impulses which he implants in 
every heart not utterly closed against him is betrayal. 
The real sin of betrayal lies in the readiness to put that 
finer quality of life he came to impart at the mercy of 
the coarse representatives of evil. 

The disciples were facing not the easy conventions of 
society nor the mere tithing of mint, anise and cummin by 
obedience to those commonplace rules which keep men out- 
wardly decent — they were facing standards so high that 
they could not see over them. They were standing in the 
presence of those great right things, the weightier matters 
of the law, imbedded in the words and in the life of their 
Lord. 

They found themselves also in the full enjoyment of 
the most exalted fellowship. The center of interest for 
them was not in the lamb and the bitter herbs of the old 
feast, nor in the bread and wine of the new. The center 
of interest was Christ himself. He proclaimed the gospel 
to them — he was the gospel. He was God's good news 
to their inmost souls. 

We have sore need of that upper room. The complexity 
of business life loads the man of affairs with problems 
in such a way as to almost banish the mood for devotion. 
The ceaseless round of social gayeties becomes for many a 
woman a large house all on the ground floor with no rooms 
abutting on the sky. The elaborate courses of study in 
high school and college with a hundred other interests on 
the side often militate against the growth of a definite, 
clear-cut Christian life for the student. We have constant 
need of that upper room as a place of spiritual privilege. 

When they had finished the meal, Jesus said, " I will 



494 THE MASTER'S WAY 

drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day when 
I drink it new in the Kingdom of God." There was a 
note of sadness as he contemplated the severance of those 
dear associations coupled with a note of gladness as he 
looked ahead to the higher joys of the Messianic Kingdom. 
" And when they had sung a hymn, they went out." 
It was all done decently and in order. The symbols of 
sacrifice and then the expression of joy! The cross of pain 
and then the crown of victory! "In some strange, sweet 
way when in the hour of sacrifice we have drawn the 
shades to brood in the darkness of our souls, the light of 
holy joy bursts in and the hand of faith sets all the chords 
of the heart vibrating with the praise of God." 



LXXXII 
THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST 

Mark 14 : 32-42 

" And they came to a place named Gethsemane." It 
seems to have been an olive orchard, a private inclosure, 
but during the Paschal season houses and gardens at Jeru- 
salem were open to strangers. There is today a plot of 
ground just across the brook Kidron surrounded by a wall 
having within it eight old olive trees. They seem so old 
that some suppose they are the very trees on which our 
Lord may have looked. They stand there " in the majesty 
of their age and the pathos of their decay, the most 
venerable of their race on the face of the earth, their 
gnarled trunks and scanty foliage causing them to be re- 
garded as the most affecting of the sacred memorials about 
Jerusalem." 

Here Jesus went the night before his crucifixion to pray. 
He had seen the hollowness of that popular enthusiasm 
which on the first day of the week shouted," Hosanna," 
and before the week was done swelled the cry that he be 
crucified. He had seen the deadness of the national 
church — with all its glorious traditions of divine mercy 
in the past and with the divine oracles in its hands, it did 
not know the things that belonged to its peace. He had 
celebrated the Last Supper with the Twelve, imparting 
to them of his very life, yet knowing that they would go 
forth, one to betray him and another to deny him before 
cock crow. It was an hour when defeat and disappoint- 
ment seemed to mass themselves above the horizon like 

495 



496 THE MASTER'S WAY 

great black clouds shutting out his vision of the stars. 
He went alone in the darkness to pray. 

He took with him into the Garden the three closest 
friends he had, Peter and James and John, the same three 
who had been with him on the Mount of Transfiguration 
and in the chamber of death at Jairus' house, sharing 
with him many an hour of high privilege and of special 
intimacy. He said to them, " Tarry ye here and watch, 
while I go yonder and pray." 

You know the feeling. In your own hour of distress 
when you were racked by pain or torn with mental an- 
guish, it was a source of comfort to know that some one 
who loved you was near, awake and sympathetic. ' We 
know what a relief it is to see the honest, affectionate face 
of a menial servant regretting that your suffering may be 
infinitely above his poor comprehension. It may be a 
secret which you cannot impart to him or it may be a 
mental distress which his mind is unable to appreciate, 
yet still his sympathy in your dark hour is worth a world." 

The Master left the three friends to watch while he went 
a stone's cast into the darkness of the lonely garden to 
pray. When he returned presently he found them all 
asleep. How thoughtless and selfish they seemed! He 
shook his head over the weakness of their devotion. "Could 
ye not watch with me one hour? " He addressed the 
leader of the group, "Simon" — using the old name of 
the fickle, unrenewed man rather than " Peter," the new 
name of grace, which foretold the final emergence of a man 
possessed of the steadfast fidelity of a great rock — "Simon, 
sleepest thou? " There were his three closest friends ap- 
parently indifferent to his agony. 

He was destined to tread the wine-press alone. His 
experience is typal and representative — the hard-fought 
battles of life are commonly fought out alone. The fiercest 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 497 

struggle comes not where men are marching in long ranks 
with drums beating, flags flying and shouts of victory burst- 
ing from ten thousand throats. The hardest battles are 
fought where some soul faces its own doubts, its own sins, 
its own sorrows, its own defeats, struggling with them 
alone. 

Jacob at Jabbok ford was left alone to wrestle all night 
until the breaking of the day brought a new name and a 
new nature. Elijah, turning from the fickle people who 
halted between two opinions, was left alone under the 
juniper tree to face the apparent defeat of God's cause in 
Israel. John the Baptist, mighty when he faced the mul- 
titudes, was by the wickedness of Herod left to eat out 
his heart alone in prison — his despair voicing itself in 
that plaintive query addressed to Christ, " Art thou he 
that should come, or do we look for another? ' How much 
each man of them needed the help of watchful sympathy — 
and even the Son of Man was not exempt. ' Could ye not 
watch with me? " 

But he accepted the inevitable — "Sleep on now and 
take your rest." The chance to serve him in that hour of 
sore need was gone, forever gone into what the famous 
English preacher called " The Irreparable Past." The hour 
had come when wakening would be of no avail. The door 
of opportunity was now shut and the three men had failed 
to go in. 

In that hour of loneliness and pain the Master prayed, 
" O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me." It was a terrible cup that was being put into the 
hands of one who came craving only the opportunity to 
preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, 
to bring deliverance to the captives and to set at liberty 
them that were bruised. His enemies on the morrow would 
have their way with him as if he were the vilest of men — 



498 THE MASTER'S WAY 

as if there were no moral order. They would mock his 
claims and scorn his leadership; they would spit upon him 
and nail him to a cross to die between two thieves. His 
benign nature instinctively cried out, " If it be possible, 
let this cup pass." 

But the cup did not pass — he was constrained to drink 
it to the last dregs. And in that hour of heartfelt appeal 
to high heaven, he felt that it would be so. And then at 
last the prayer came: " Xot as I will, but as thou wilt 
If this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy 
will be done." And herein lies the highest answer to 
prayer — not in patient acquiescence and resignation to 
something which we are powerless to avert but in high 
resolve to go forth and do that perfect will now seen and 
accepted through the clearer light and holier purpose 
achieved by prayer. 

11 Prayer is not offered to deflect God's will to yours, 
but to adjust your will to his," says Francis G. Peabody. 
" When a ship's captain is setting out on a voyage he first 
of all adjusts his compasses, corrects their divergence and 
counteracts the influences which draw the needle from the 
pole. Well, that is prayer. It is the adjustment of the 
compass of the soul; it is the restoration from deflection; 
it is the pointing of it to the will of God. And the soul 
which thus sails forth into the sea of life finds itself — 
not indeed freed from all storms of the spirit, but at least 
sure of its direction through them all." 

The claim has been made that if we have faith when we 
pray, we can get anything we want. Jesus had faith. He 
prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." It did not pass — 
he drank it next day upon the cross. But he prayed until 
he could say, " Nevertheless, if I must . . . not my will 
but thine be done." The high office of prayer is not to 
enable a man to stand before God saying, " Xot as thou 






THE LIFE ETERNAL 499 

wilt but as I will." Its high office is to bring a man into 
such harmony with God that he will say not passively but 
actively and courageously, " Thy will be done." And that 
of itself is a mighty answer. What better result could 
come than for the soul to be made able to stand before 
the Eternal saying, " Thy will be done." 

Jesus looked forward to the time when the clamorous, 
insistent type of prayer, intent upon securing its own ends, 
would pass. " In that day ye shall ask me nothing." 
The petitionary element would be overshadowed by the 
sense of holy companionship. When a man prays he is in 
the highest company open to him. The very fact that he 
is there in the rich enjoyment of such high privilege is in 
itself a great reward for his action in offering his prayer. 

" Arise, let us be going," Jesus said when he had prayed 
the third time. And he went forth not now to be minis- 
tered unto but to minister at the altar of sacrifice, giving 
his life a ransom for many. 

We have no portrait of Jesus of Nazareth. He lived 
before the days of cameras. How much it would mean if 
we could actually look upon his face not as outlined by the 
ecclesiastical imaginings of mediaeval artists painting altar- 
pieces for the churches, but as he was! 

If we could take the faces of all the men and women 
who have entered upon their moral struggles feeling them- 
selves alone but coming through their very agony into a 
new sense of companionship with the Father; if we could 
summon all the fathers who have patiently borne with 
vicious sons that they might win them from their wrong- 
doings; if we could take all the faithful wives, disheartened 
but not destroyed by their sense of disappointment, cling- 
ing to husbands who had shown themselves unfaithful 
that they might share with Christ the joy of moral re- 
covery; if we could bring all the people who have been 



500 THE MASTER'S WAY 

loyal to their friends through good report and evil report, 
giving of their best and suffering loss that good might come 
to those other lives — if we could bring all these faces 
together and take a composite photograph of them, when 
the last bit of human sympathy and unselfishness had 
registered itself upon that sensitive plate, we should have 
there the perfect face of the Christ. 

Dewdrops shine like diamonds in the early morning be- 
cause they reflect the sun. And human hearts massed 
together by such experiences in fighting heroically the moral 
battles of the world, likewise reflect the glory of God as 
seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 



LXXXIII 
THE MAN WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN 
Matt. 26 : 14-25, 47, 50; 27 : 3-10 

The story of Judas is a study in religious privilege. 
Here was a life admitted into the closest intimacy with the 
Highest who ever walked the earth, yet going out in the 
darkness of treachery, remorse and suicide. His fate brings 
home to every heart an effective reminder that great relig- 
ious privileges do not insure a man against final spiritual 
ruin. 

11 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these — 
Simon and Andrew; James and John; Philip and Bartholo- 
mew; Thomas and Matthew; James, the son of Alphseus, 
and Thaddeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who 
also betrayed him." He was indeed " one of the Twelve." 

We are familiar with all the stock questions. Why did 
Jesus choose Judas in the first place? Did he know that 
Judas would prove a traitor? When he found that Judas 
was playing false why did he not instantly expel him from 
the company of the Twelve? Did the disciples really 
believe that he was " a thief " when he complained that 
the precious ointment was not sold for three hundred 
pence? Was Judas false from the first, following Christ 
from some ulterior motive? Was there some redeeming 
motive underlying his readiness to betray Christ into the 
hands of his enemies? 

It is impossible to dogmatize upon the psychology of a 
man so far removed from our scrutiny as is Judas. It is 
impossible for us to judge his acts in any hard and fast 

501 



502 THE MASTER'S WAY 

way with such meager data regarding his mental and moral 
processes. It would seem reasonable to suppose that Judas 
entered upon his discipleship with as much sincerity as any 
of the Twelve. It would be a mockery to think that 
" Jesus continued all night in prayer and when it was day 
chose " a man who was false at heart in that very hour. 

It is plain that in the earlier period of Christ's ministry 
his fellow-disciples trusted Judas. They elected him trea- 
surer — men do not commonly intrust the money bag to 
a " suspect." They do not select for Chancellor of the 
Exchequer a man concerning whose honesty they feel 
uncertain. 

Even after Judas had approached the chief priests and 
when the thirty pieces of silver were weighing down his 
pocket as so much lead, the eleven did not suspect him of 
treachery. When Jesus said at the last supper, " One of 
you shall betray me," it did not occur to any one of them 
to say, " Is it Judas? " They were dumbfounded. But 
every man turned his eyes within, meditating upon the la- 
tent possibilities of unfaithfulness in his own heart. Every 
man of them said, " Lord, is it I ? " 

The narrative indicates that the definite moral lapse of 
Judas came near the close of Christ's ministry. Luke says, 
near the end of his record, " Satan entered into Judas 
surnamed Iscariot and he went his way and communed 
with the chief priests how he might betray him." Satan 
had not been resident in the wretched man's heart during 
all those years of fellowship with Christ — Luke indicates 
here a definite lapse. We must believe then that Judas 
entered upon his high privileges with sincerity and then 
in the very face of a unique opportunity for spiritual ad- 
vance, became " the son of perdition." 

Did Jesus know when he chose him that Judas would 
prove false? In the interests of theological theory it has 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 503 

sometimes been deemed necessary to assert that Jesus 
knew all things. He expressly disclaimed omniscience. 
He asked for information and waited to receive it through 
the natural channels. He disclaimed his knowledge of a 
certain day and hour — that knowledge belonged only to 
the Father. Had he known in advance that Judas would 
show himself a traitor, the original selection would become 
unreal. He apparently chose him as a man of exceptional 
ability, giving him the fullest opportunity for life and 
service of the highest type — it was one of his many ven- 
tures of faith and hope and love. 

The underlying fault in the man's make-up was a com- 
mon one with his race — he was mercenary. He was a 
lover of money more than a lover of God. His first ques- 
tion when he faced the chief priests was, " What will you 
give me and I will betray him? " 

How many times we hear that ugly note in the speech 
of those ancient Hebrews? " Sell me this day thy birth- 
right " — and taking advantage of his brother's extremity 
the crafty Jacob got it at a bargain. When Joseph is 
lying in the pit and the caravan comes along, hear Judah 
reasoning in this thrifty fashion — " What profit is it if we 
slay our brother? Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites." 
Hear Peter with this sordid inquiry on his lips — "We 
have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have 
therefore? " The Hebrew was prone to have his eye on 
the main chance. And Judas Iscariot had a Benjamin's 
portion of that weakness. 

How pointed become the warnings of Jesus as to the 
peril of covetousness when we see Judas standing with the 
Twelve hearing his Master's words! It may be that Jesus 
saw the moral twist in the man's nature when he said, 
"Beware of covetousness — a man's life consisteth not in 
the abundance of the things that he possesseth." He may 



504 THE MASTER'S WAY 

have seen Judas looking greedily at the contents of the 
well-worn bag when he said, " Provide yourselves bags 
which wax not old; treasures of heavenly character which 
fail not." He may have seen this disciple intent upon 
gain and halting at the parting of the ways when he 
uttered that searching word — " Xo man can serve two 
masters. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 

The motives of Judas in betraying his Lord have been 
rigidly scrutinized. In my judgment we may well believe 
that the unhappy man did believe that Jesus would in some 
miraculous way extricate himself from the hands of the 
soldiers — the subsequent action of Judas indicates as 
much. And it may be that his worldly mind believed that 
by his shrewdness he might hasten the setting up of that 
temporal kingdom at Jerusalem which in his judgment had 
already been too long delayed. He may have felt that he 
would be thirty pieces of silver to the good, that Jesus 
would in the end suffer no hurt, and that out of his plot 
there might come a swifter consummation of the ambitions 
of the Twelve touching that temporal kingdom for which 
they were all looking. This does not in any wise remove or 
even diminish the moral falsity of Judas, but it does throw 
light on what may have been his mental processes. 

When Jesus did not deliver himself but allowed himself 
to be put to death in the most cruel and humiliating way, 
it broke the heart of Judas. This would not have been so 
in the case of a man cold, insincere and cruel from the 
start. He came sobbing into the presence of the chief 
priests with this heartfelt cry, ' I have sinned in that I 
have betrayed innocent blood." When they gave no heed 
to the moral tragedy of his life, turning away bluntly 
with that brutal word, " What is that to us? ' Judas 
cast down the thirty pieces of silver and went out to hang 
himself. He had not meant to destroy the One Perfect 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 505 

Life the world has ever seen, but greed and stealth led 
him into sharing in the world's greatest tragedy as a guilty 
participant. 

The spirit of avarice begat a treacherous purpose. The 
treacherous purpose became the father of an open act of 
betrayal. The act of betrayal brought in its train an un- 
bearable remorse. And the intolerable remorse induced 
suicide. It was an ugly flight of steps leading down toward 
perdition. When once he put his foot fairly and fully on 
the first step, he went to the bottom. 

His bearing in the face of the awful consequences of his 
deed awakens pity in our hearts. " I have sinned " — 
the same word which fell from the lips of the prodigal in 
the presence of a forgiving father. " I have betrayed in- 
nocent blood." Innocent blood! It was a tardy but a 
heartfelt tribute to the moral perfection of the one he had 
wronged. He hung himself, unable to bear the burden of 
guilt he now felt. We may well remember that not every 
man who has preferred silver to Christ or who has sold 
his Christian principles to the highest bidder has had the 
grace to show such sense of contrition. 

In judging the character of Judas it is wise for us to 
observe that principle of seriousness and of reserve which 
found expression in the first chapter of the Acts. " Judas 
by transgression fell that he might go to his own place." 
No effort was made to describe or to locate that " place." 
Well may we paraphrase the lines of Hood touching the 
vv retched woman who had sought refuge from the horror 
of her evil life in the cold waters of the Thames. 

" Owning his weakness, 
His evil behavior, 
Leaving with meekness 
His sins to his Saviour." 

14 Lord, is it I? " We are glad that each man in that 



506 THE MASTER'S WAY 

group thought only of his own liability to fall, casting no 
eye of suspicion upon the moral prospects of his fellows. 
" When the wind is rising it is good for each ship at sea 
to look to its own ropes and sails and not stand gazing 
to see how ready the other ships are to meet it. We all 
feel that we would rather hear a man asking anxiously 
about himself than to see him so sure of himself that the 
question never occurs to him. We should be surer of his 
standing firm if we saw that he knew he was in danger of 
a fall." 

11 Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and 
know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in 
me. And lead me in the way everlasting." 

" Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all: — 
Close up his eyes and draw the curtains close. 
And let us all to meditation." 



LXXXIV 

THE ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

Matt. 26 : 47-68 

He was betrayed by a kiss — the sweet token of affec- 
tion degraded to the basest use! He was taken by men 
with swords and staves — the very presence of the weapons 
an insult to the peaceful method of his life. The Master 
voiced his open resentment of their action. " Are ye come 
out as against a robber with swords and staves? ' He was 
seized in the dark, his enemies bearing witness that their 
foul deed would not bear the light of day. 

When his foes first laid hands upon him one of his 
disciples, the ready, warm-hearted, impulsive leader of the 
Twelve, began to fight. He whipped out his sword as he 
had whipped out many an ill-considered word which 
brought upon him his Lord's rebuke. Before Jesus could 
remonstrate he had struck a blow, cutting off a man's ear 
by his ill-directed thrust in the darkness of the garden. 

Peter was headed wrong. Not by violence and blood- 
shed was that Kingdom which is to be an everlasting King- 
dom to be established! " Put up thy sword." The weap- 
ons of our warfare are not carnal for the destroying of 
men's lives. They are spiritual — instruction, persuasion, 
moral appeal, the unconstrained force of holy example — 
for the saving of men's lives. " Put up thy sword." 
The Christian world heard that injunction nineteen hundred 
years ago, but alas (as it has been brought home to us so 
terribly in these recent months)! even those who in the 
high places of earth proclaim themselves the chosen of 

507 



508 THE MASTER'S WAY 

heaven and the favored partners of the Almighty have 
not learned that vital word. 

11 My Kingdom is not of this world," Jesus said, " if 
it were my servants would fight." The servants of the 
Roman Empire which was even now laying its sacrilegious 
hands upon him were accustomed to fight. Might made 
the only right they respected. But he was the servant of 
a higher method. He came to establish an order of life 
where right would constitute the only might; where the 
final arbitrament would not be that of force. 

The Moslem may take the sword — it jars not with the 
ideals of his faith. He may go forth in fiery evangelism, 
his weapon in one hand, his Koran in the other, offering 
the reluctant that fearful option to coerce their acceptance 
of his creed. But where Christendom takes the sword 
the inmost spirit of it does in that very act perish by the 
sword. 

The battles have not all been fought. The wars have 
not all been waged. Stern necessity may thrust upon men 
of honor the obligation of self-defense or of succor to 
weaker interests beset by unprincipled force. All this but 
serves to testify to the moral distance still to be traversed. 
We have a long and painful road to go in securing the 
prevalence of those principles which shall usher in the day 
when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, the bright 
metal of young manhood shaped into productive rather 
than destructive forms ; when nation shall not lift up sword 
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 

Then came what a great preacher has called ' The 
Willing Surrender." The Master had swords innumerable 
and invincible at his command but not one of them would 
be drawn in his defense. " Thinkest thou that I cannot 
beseech my Father and he shall even now send me more 
than twelve legions of angels." Ke need not rely upon 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 509 

the puny defense of eleven shuddering men. For every 
man of them Christ had within call a legion of super- 
human defenders able to smite his enemies to the dust. 
He could — but would not. 

" To give up some precious thing which is legitimately 
yours; to shut your eyes upon visions of glory or safety 
or luxury which you might make your own without a 
shade of blame, that is so truly one of the marks of 
nobility that no man is accounted by the best standards 
truly noble who is not doing that in some degree. The 
man who is taking all that he has a right to take in life 
is always touched with a suspicion and a shade of base- 
ness." 

Thus the Master was left without defense by his own 
high choice. " All the disciples left him and fled." The 
legions remained unsummoned. He was in the hands of 
his foes that they might work upon him their own hateful 
will. 

He was taken at once to the house of Caiaphas, the high 
priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered to- 
gether. They thought that they were trying him — he 
was trying them. Jesus before Caiaphas — nay, rather 
Caiaphas before Jesus. And how sadly Caiaphas fails to 
stand the test! " It is more than a play upon words to 
render the verdict that the high priest was a low priest. 
Low in the mad midnight haste whereby he attempted to 
hurry his victim to his fate! Low in his methods in secur- 
ing evidence, caring not for the truth, satisfied with the 
mere semblance of evidence! Low in his attempt to trick 
the prisoner into some phrase that might be distorted into 
cause for condemnation! Low in his effort, by rending his 
garments dramatically, to force his associates to concur in 
his denunciation." 

And the conduct of the trial — what a grewsome story 



510 THE MASTER'S WAY 

it is! ' Then did they spit in his face and buffet him. 
Some smote him saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ — 
who struck thee." The prisoner today in all Christian 
lands is treated with decency and respect. This is one of 
the fair fruits of the order of life introduced by him who 
took upon his sympathetic heart the sad lot of the ac- 
cused when he said, " I was in prison and ye visited me." 

The right of the accused to have counsel, the removal 
of any obligation to criminate himself, the parole and 
probation systems, the indeterminate sentence, the gradual 
banishment of the grotesque garb and the shaved head 
having as their object the making of the prisoner con- 
temptible in his own eyes and the eyes of all, the replacing 
of the spirit of vengeance by the purpose of reformation 
in prison administration, the humane ministry of Maude 
Ballington Booth and of all kindred spirits — all these 
serve to mark the moral distance we have traversed from 
that rough scene in the court of Caiaphas. 

We turn our eyes from the rabble in that trial scene, 
who were like the chafT which the wind driveth away, to 
the One who stood like a tree planted by a river of water, 
bringing forth the fruits of the spirit in due season, the 
leaves of his matchless life un withered. 

With what calmness and dignity did he bear it all! He 
was unmoved, untouched by the blows and the spittle, by 
the words of abuse and the injustice of their accusations. 
What a plenitude he had of that love which is the ful- 
filling of the law. He suffered long and was kind. He did 
not behave himself unseemly. He was not easily provoked. 
He had the spirit which beareth all things, belicveth all 
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. He had the 
love that never faileth. 

To this end had he come into the world that he might 
bear witness to the truth and manifest the Father. In the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 511 

foul surroundings of that rude court no less than in the 
hour when he utters the matchless sayings in the Sermon 
on the Mount or stands on Hermon, his face illumined 
with a glory never seen on sea or land, he will do just 
that. He will say in the darkest hour of pain or humilia- 
tion, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 

How self-controlled he was — he who felt the moral 
outrage of the blows, the spittle and the vile words of 
abuse as none other could! He bore himself in that superb 
self-restraint which denotes moral grandeur, for greater is 
he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city. 

They could not humiliate him — they did but humiliate 
themselves in the sight of the ages. He had already hum- 
bled himself by taking upon himself the form of a servant 
and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross. And by that act of self-renunciation he was exalted 
until his name is above every name. 

He was poor in purse and in earthly friends and in politi- 
cal influence. Among the rabble not one would have 
counted himself so poor as to have done him reverence. 
But the Master was rich in principle and in purpose, in 
the power of moral appeal and in the energy of a holy 
life. He had riches which they knew not of. 

He bore their insults and their inquiries in a majestic 
silence. He was looking steadfastly not at the things which 
are seen but at the things which are not seen, knowing 
that the things which are seen are temporal, while the 
things which are unseen are eternal. Finally, when Caiaphas 
adjured him by the living God to declare whether or no he 
was the Christ, the Son of God, he broke his silence with a 
word which has come down through the centuries. It was 
a word to be heard and heeded forever more. " Thou hast 
said it. Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at 
the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven." 



512 THE MASTER'S WAY 

The testimony is all in. His own word was what the 
lawyers call " the best evidence." The high priest ac- 
cording to rabbinical requirement when blasphemy was 
proved, rent his garments. The church court preferred its 
charge and made ready to take the prisoner before Pilate, 
the Roman official. The Son of Man is already standing 
within the shadow of the cross, serene, undaunted, confident. 
He is doing the Father's will ; he is manifesting the Father's 
spirit. 



LXXXV 

JESUS AND PETER 

Mark 14 : 27-31, 53-54, 66-72 

What a strange man was this Peter — ardent, impulsive, 
impetuous! He cannot open his lips without revealing 
these uncertain qualities. " Depart from me for I am a 
sinful man, Lord," he cried at one time, as if thrusting 
away his only hope of salvation. " Lord, to whom shall 
we go — thou hast the words of eternal life," he says 
later, clinging more closely than all the rest. " Thou shalt 
never wash my feet," he says, protesting against the very 
idea of having the Lord render that lowly service to him. 
Then a moment later, fearing the loss of intimate contact 
with Christ, he cries, " Lord, not my feet only, but my 
hands and my head." 

Here in the lesson we find the same instability. 
" Though all men should deny thee, yet I will never deny 
thee." This was his confident boast early in the evening. 
Then before cockcrow he protested with an oath that he 
never knew the Master. Everywhere the same impulsive, 
impetuous vigor, now good, now bad, but always intense! 

He reveals it by his actions no less than by his words. 
He falls asleep on the Mount of Transfiguration when he 
should have been awake. Suddenly awakened, he plans 
in his misdirected zeal to build three tents to protect 
Moses and Elijah and Jesus from the night air. He falls 
asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane when he ought to 
have been awake and watching. Suddenly aroused, he 
draws his sword, and with misdirected zeal slashes off the 

513 



514 THE MASTER'S WAY 

ear of a servant who was standing near. He denied his 
Lord thrice in a night, and then on the Sea of Galilee, 
learning that Jesus is on the shore, he cannot wait for the 
beaching of the boat — he leaps into the water and swims 
ashore to greet his risen Lord. 

You may have such an eager, intense, impulsive nature 
in your Sunday-school class or in your own home. You 
despair of ever making out of him a quiet, thoughtful, 
contemplative Christian like John, or an even-tempered, 
reliable, methodical Christian like Philip. It cannot be 
done. You need not break your heart about it or worry 
the life out of that Peter-like soul in the attempt. 

' There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the 
moon and another glory of the stars; and one star dif- 
fereth from another star in glory." They are all glorious 
but they all differ. There is one glory about a certain 
type of Christian character and another distinct glory 
about a varying type. The ardent, impulsive natures 
under the influence of divine grace show forth Christian 
graces " after their kind." The less picturesque but more 
dependable natures, under the working of the same Spirit, 
show forth spiritual excellence in their appointed way. 

Peter took his first step toward a moral lapse that fateful 
night by his boastfulness and self-confidence — "Though 
all should deny thee, yet will not I." " Brag is a good dog 
but Hold Fast is better " — it is a homely proverb but with 
meat in it. In statelier fashion the king of Israel said of 
old, " Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast him- 
self as he that putteth it off." Let Peter try his full 
strength in pulling up hill the moral load laid upon him; 
then it will be in order for him to speak confidently of his 
prowess. 

The Master warned him in the terms of a picture which 
those outdoor men had witnessed a thousand times on the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 515 

hillsides of Galilee. He told them that when the shepherd 
was smitten the sheep would be scattered. But still Peter 
loudly affirmed his own steadfastness under fire. " Yet 
will not I! " Alas, poor Peter! 

He had some courage and devotion, for after the arrest 
of Jesus he did corne to the trial before Caiaphas. He 
followed " afar off " indeed, but he was there when " all 
the other disciples," according to the synoptic gospels, 
" had fled." They did not come to the trial at all. He 
was chary about showing his friendship for the accused; 
he stood off among the servants, warming himself after the 
chill of exposure during those hours when he had been 
asleep in the Garden. 

He was suddenly bowled over by an unexpected tempta- 
tion. He had been sleeping when he should have been 
watching and praying; now his moral nature was relaxed 
and the inner fiber of his soul had no power of resistance. 
One of the maidservants — it may be in no unfriendly 
spirit — said to him, "Thou also wast with the Naza- 
rene." But Peter replied, " I know not what thou sayest." 
And he went out into the porch. Then another said of him, 
" This is one of them." But Peter again denied any 
affiliation with the party which seemed to be on the wane. 
Then a moment later a man said to him, " Of a truth thou 
art one of them, for thou art a Galilean " — his speech be- 
trayed him. Peter began to curse and swear. In the name 
of God he denied any fellowship with Jesus. At that 
moment the cock crew — and he remembered! 

It would seem sometimes that the lower orders of exis- 
tence are in league and covenant with the Judge of all the 
earth to bring home to the consciences of sinning men their 
moral lapses. When Saul told his ugly lie, the sheep which 
he had promised to slay suddenly bleated out the truth. 
When Balaam was setting forth to claim " the wages of 



516 THE MASTER'S WAY 

iniquity " the dumb ass stubbornly turned aside into the 
field, then jammed his foot against a stone wall and then 
fell down altogether, as if to detain him from that fated 
errand. When Macbeth stole in under cover of darkness to 
murder the king, " the night was unruly; chimneys were 
blown down, lamentings were heard in the air and strange 
screams." And here, punctual to the second, when the 
third culminating denial fell from the cowardly Apostle's 
lips, the cock crew as if keeping tryst with the word of 
the Lord. 

" And the Lord turned and looked on Peter." It was 
only a look, but it was enough. It brought to Peter's 
mind the warning he had received at the time of his boast- 
ful utterance touching the fidelity he would show when 
the crisis came. It brought to his heart afresh the sense 
of the Lord's gentleness with his wavering disciple. It 
brought to his soul a feeling of remorse over his instability 
and ingratitude. " And he went out and wept bitterly." 

In the hour when Peter turned away from his Lord in 
wicked and profane denial of that holy relationship with 
which he had been blessed, the Lord turned anew to Peter. 
The divine compassion took the initiative here as every- 
where. " We love him, because he first loved us." "While 
we were yet sinners Christ died for us." " No man cometh 
unto me except the Father in heaven draw him." The 
first overtures come uniformly from God's side. And with 
all his fickleness and faultiness Peter had kept his heart 
so sensitive that one look from his Lord was enough to 
face him again toward the light. 

The gentleness of the divine compassion! ' The remon- 
strance of Jesus did not come in hot words of censure 
or denunciation; it did not come in loud appeal or fervent 
exhortation for an about face — it came in a look of pity- 
ing surprise that this impetuous man could so soon fall 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 517 

away from his fervent mood of devotion. The Lord was 
not in the wind. The Lord was not in the fire. The 
Lord was not in the earthquake. The Lord was in a still, 
small voice, spiritually efficacious beyond all the more 
violent expressions of power and purpose. 

" Peter went out and wept bitterly." " Judas went and 
hanged himself." " Each of these men had a chapter in 
his life which contained the story of a black sin," said Dean 
Hodges. " There is a difference between the man who be- 
trays and the man who denies his Master, but not a very 
great difference. Judas went and hanged himself, while 
Peter went out and wept bitterly, feeling very badly about 
it. But there is a good deal of difference between putting 
a handkerchief to one's eyes and putting a rope about 
one's neck. Ought not Peter to have imitated Judas? 

11 The question is, What shall a man do who has com- 
mitted a great sin? Shall he go out and weep bitterly 
and then try to make up for his offense and be a decent 
man again? Or shall he go and hang himself? A man 
can hang himself without a rope. He can go hanged 
through the rest of a long life; that is, he can make him- 
self absolutely miserable, torture his soul, put his con- 
science in the rack every night and break his heart on 
the wheel. He can commit spiritual suicide. Which is the 
best example — the apostle with the tearful eyes or the 
apostle with the broken neck? " 

The question is soon answered. Remorse and despair 
may fittingly express a man's abhorrence for his sin. 
But repentance where it is real has more of worth. It 
indicates an about face. It paves the way for hope and 
aspiration. It is more precious than diamonds and rubies, 
for it foretells the upward movement of a soul which will 
outlast and outshine them all. Penitence with trust is big 
with promise. 



518 THE MASTER'S WAY 

David was a man after God's own heart, not because he 
was without fault — David fell into the grossest sin. He 
was a man after God's own heart because when he fell 
he got up again, faced toward his Lord rather than away 
from him. Peter is perhaps the best beloved of all the 
disciples, not because of any unstained moral excellence, 
but because his weakness seemed to drive him into closer 
fellowship with and into a truer dependence upon his Lord. 

There lies the source of hope for us all. If we say we 
have no sin we deceive ourselves. But if we confess our 
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When the wicked man 
turneth away from his wickedness and doeth that which is 
lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. 



LXXXVI 

JESUS BEFORE PILATE 

Matt. 27 : 11-31; Luke 23 : 1-25 

The painter, the poet and the preacher have all tried 
their hands on this situation. And however they have 
pictured the outer setting of the principal figures, they 
have all united in causing the figure of the prisoner to 
dominate the whole scene. Wherever this stone which the 
builders refused is placed, there is the head of the corner. 
Wherever the Son of Man stands, there is the right hand 
of power! 

"Now Jesus stood before the governor" — not to be 
judged but to judge the haughty official. He stood there 
to determine what place this Roman officer would thence- 
forth take in the estimate of the race. And he doomed 
him to a sorry place. " Suffered under Pontius Pilate " — 
this is the man's only title to remembrance. The card 
with which he is ticketed is bordered with black and stained 
with blood. He won for himself a somber bit of immortal- 
ity in those moments when the Man of Nazareth stood 
before him. He knew not that that hour was the most 
significant hour in his whole career. 

With what patient dignity Jesus bore himself before this 
crafty, wriggling, politic official and in the face of the 
rabble. " When he was accused by the chief priests and 
elders, he answered nothing." '• When Pilate said, How 
many things they witness against thee — he answered not a 
word." When the governor inquired, " Art thou the king 
of the Jews? " Jesus replied, " Thou sayest." He bore 

519 



520 THE MASTER'S WAY 

himself as one conscious of the fact that the whole proceed- 
ing was a travesty. He himself was taking the moral 
government of the world upon his shoulder as none other 
ever has. 

We are told that at the feast of the passover it was the 
custom to release one prisoner as an act of mercy upon the 
demand of the multitude. It was like the custom of hav- 
ing the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
announce the pardon of some criminal on the morning of 
Thanksgiving Day. 

There was one noted prisoner in bonds named Barabbas. 
He had been a robber. When the multitude came Pilate 
suggested that he might at their request release Barabbas. 
" Barabbas or Christ? " he called out to them. It is a 
rude picture of the eternal option. What spirit is to be 
set free in the world to work its will upon the lives of 
men? Shall it be the spirit that goes to kill and to steal 
and to destroy, or the spirit that comes that men may have 
life and have it more abundantly? There is never a con- 
gregation great or small gathered to hear the gospel which 
does not have this option put up to them. What moral 
forces are to be released and made active? Will you 
liberate Barabbas or will you liberate Jesus? 

When the mob called for the release of Barabbas, Pilate 
was disposed to remonstrate with them. " He knew that 
for envy they had delivered up Jesus." But the rabble 
cried the more, " If thou release this man thou art not 
Caesar's friend. Every one that maketh himself a king 
speaketh against Caesar." And Pilate then asked them, 
" What then shall I do with Jesus? " 

He must have known the futility of submitting a ques- 
tion of right and wrong to an angry mob. The man who 
would submit a legal question involving the life of a human 
being to the rabble gathered in a lynching mood is either 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 521 

a fool or a knave. It might seem from the data before 
us that Pilate was both. 

Pilate saw in Jesus a harmless enthusiast, a dreamer 
and a visionary, who talked of a kingdom where men did 
not fight, where power did not rest upon force. He found 
no fault in him except that he seemed to be utterly im- 
practicable in his method of seeking sovereignty over the 
lives of men. He would have been glad to let him go but 
for the fact that it would evidently please the people to 
have him delivered up to shameful death. 

But the Roman official had still some remnant of that 
sense of justice which the Roman government bred in its 
representatives. " Why, what evil hath he done? " It 
would be interesting to make up a composite appraisement 
of Christ from the estimates placed upon him by out- 
siders. Pilate said, " I find no fault in him." Pilate's 
wife called Jesus, " That righteous man." Judas said that 
in betraying him, he had betrayed " innocent blood." 
If there had been a moral flaw in Christ, Judas would have 
detected it. The enemies of Jesus when he hung upon 
the cross cried out, " He trusted in God." The Centurion 
said when he had witnessed the death of Jesus upon the 
cross, " Truly this was the Son of God." 

At this point in the proceedings there came a message 
to the Roman governor from his wife. She had a dream, 
and dreams in that day were more highly esteemed than 
now. It was believed that in these interstices of ordinary 
consciousness when the normal faculties were in a measure 
suspended, the supernatural found its opportunity and God 
uttered his voice through dreams. His wife sent to Pilate 
saying, " Have thou nothing to do with that righteous man, 
for I have suffered many things in a dream because of 
him." 

Pilate saw that his remonstrance in nowise affected 



522 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the attitude of the mob. He turned a deaf ear to the pro- 
test of his wife, grounded as it was in what seemed to 
him the foolish fears begotten of a woman's dream. He 
made ready to deliver his august prisoner into the hands 
of the mob that they might work their will upon him. 
But first he will wash his hands in showy fashion as if he 
would by that symbolic act disclaim all share in their 
bloody business. " He washed his hands before the multi- 
tude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous 
man. See ye to it." 

They did not shirk the responsibility. Their mad bigotry 
was ready to go all lengths. " All the people answered 
and said, His blood be upon us and upon our children." 
It has been! From that hour there fell a blight upon the 
religious life of Israel. They lost the right of the line in 
spiritual leadership which they had held for many glorious 
centuries. The coldness and the indifference of great sec- 
tions of Judaism today is one of the burdens which rests 
heavily upon the hearts of devoted rabbis. It was a fear- 
ful undertaking they assumed when they cried, " His blood 
be upon us," and fearfully have they rendered payment. 

But the responsibility could not be shifted thus easily 
by Pilate's showy action in washing his hands or by that 
ill-considered word of the people. Pilate stands condemned 
before the ages on these two counts: 

First, he knew Christ to be unworthy of shameful death. 
Pie stands condemned by his own lips. ' Why, what evil 
hath he done? I find no fault in this man." 

In the second place, he had power to release and to 
protect Christ, but he failed to exercise it. "I have power 
to release thee and have power to crucify thee," he said 
to the Master as he stood there in his tribunal. And 
when the hour struck he used his power for the impal- 
ing of innocence upon the cross. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 523 

Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution. The 
Jews were not allowed under Roman rule to inflict it upon 
any offender. Their malignity would have been powerless 
therefore to have brought Jesus to the cross but for the 
support and co-operation of this Roman official who cared 
more for the yell of the mob or the smile of Csesar than 
for the cause of right. " I find no fault in him — then he 
delivered him unto them to be crucified." The setting of 
these two statements in conjunction shows him in the very 
act of poisoning the stream of justice at its source. 

The rabble took swift advantage of Pilate's permission 
when he released Barabbas and scourged Jesus, delivering 
him to the people to be crucified. They repeated all the 
insults of the ecclesiastical court convened before Caiaphas. 
They put upon Christ a scarlet robe — but in mockery of 
his kingly claims. They placed upon his head a crown — 
but it was formed of rough and painful thorns. They 
placed in his hand the scepter of authority — but it was 
a poor broken reed which they gave him as if to flaunt 
the idea of his assertion of power. 

How blind they were! Here was one, the date of whose 
birth would become the starting point from which all the 
leading nations of earth would speedily come to reckon 
their time! Here was one who would change the moral 
history of the race, replacing its low, imperfect ideals by 
the august standards he imposed upon its spiritual life! 
Here was One destined to reign in the hearts of men and 
in the spiritual advance of the world until he should have 
put all enemies under his feet! And the only thing that 
crowd in Pilate's courtroom could find to do was to mock 
these valid claims with studied insult. 

The question which fell lightly from Pilate's lips has 
come to be the great question of the ages. It must be 
answered by every individual. His own destiny turns upon 



524 THE MASTER'S WAY 

the answer he gives. It must be answered by the courses 
which the civilizations of the world take, and the stability 
or the instability they shall show will turn upon the reply 
they make. " What then shall I do with Jesus, who is 
called the Christ? " 

" Shall I reject him and live precisely as if I had never 
heard his name? " asked William M. Taylor, " or shall 
I accept him as my Saviour and obey him as my Lord? 
I must do the one or the other. Yet how many are seek- 
ing like Pilate to evade the question? Let me give you 
one parting word — it is this : You cannot evade the deci- 
sion but be sure that you look at the Christ before you give 
him up! " 



LXXXVII 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED 

Mark 15 : 21-41; Luke 23 : 39-43 

11 There they crucified him." When we have read these 
opening words in the passage the whole picture is before us. 
It utters its own message. It seems almost impertinent 
to speak about it — let us stand in reverent silence before 
the Cross allowing it to speak for itself! 

There are many events in the life of Jesus and many of 
his sayings which are only recorded in a single Gospel. 
But when we come to the crucifixion we have a full ac- 
count of the matter in each of the four Gospels. It would 
seem as if each man were conscious of his inability to 
bear such a burden of responsibility alone — he summons 
the other three to aid him. And each one brings in some 
record of the event or some utterance of Christ to sup- 
plement the work of the others. 

In the passages to be studied here we have these several 
steps in the progress of the dread event noted. 

Jesus was led to a place known as " Golgotha " to be 
crucified between two thieves. It was customary to re- 
quire the condemned man to bear his own cross to the 
place of execution. But owing to the unusual weight of 
this cross or to the broken physical strength of Jesus after 
the ordeal he had passed, they impressed a Cyrenian whose 
name was Simon to bear the cross. 

11 There they crucified him and the malefactors, one on 
the right hand and the other on the left." He was hung 
up between two thieves. "It was part of his humiliation 

525 



526 THE MASTER'S WAY 

that he did not suffer alone," said Phillips Brooks in a 
notable sermon. " Crucifixion was terrible and disgraceful 
enough in itself, but if Jesus had hung upon his cross with 
nothing near him to disturb the impression of his calm 
serenity and innocence, it might well have happened that 
the people who stood and watched would have lost sight 
of the disgrace and would have felt the majesty of the 
sacrifice. Already that place of suffering might have seemed 
as glorious as it has seemed to the world since. But as it 
was they went to the prison and dragged out two wretched 
culprits who were waiting for their doom. That there 
might be no doubt about the disgracefulness of the 
Saviour's sufferings, they hung him between two thieves." 

He was offered the stupefying drink and refused it. 
The humane women of that day were accustomed to pre- 
pare a drink made of wine mingled with myrrh and to 
offer it to those undergoing crucifixion to make them less 
sensible of their pain. It was an early and rude form of 
anaesthetic designed to modify the sharpness of physical 
agony. 

" But he received it not." He will not shrink from any 
pain which the obscurest slave might be compelled to 
undergo. He will face death with all his sensibilities and 
mental faculties alert. He will be ready with unclouded 
vision to behold the opportunities for redemptive service 
which may open before him even in that dread hour when 
he hangs upon the cross. 

His garments were parted among the soldiers who 
" cast lots upon them, what each should take." The 
garments of the condemned formed one of the perquisites 
of the soldiers told off for the grewsome task of executing 
criminals. And here in the presence of the most significant 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 527 

event in the moral history of mankind these men whose 
eyes were holden sat down to throw dice for the choice 
among the clothes of one whom they esteemed but an 
unfortunate Galilean peasant. The Master was compelled 
in his closing hours to look upon a group of men who 
cared more for his garments than for his gospel; they 
were more intent upon possessing what he had worn than 
upon possessing the spirit that was in him. Their action 
drove yet other nails into his sensitive nature. 

He prayed for his enemies. " Father, forgive them for 
they know not what they do." His mercy reached unto 
the clouds and it touched the lowest levels ever reached 
by human sin. His patient forbearance knew no bounds. 

He had taught his disciples to " love their enemies." 
He loved his own enemies. He bade them, " Pray for 
them that despitefully use you and persecute you." In 
that dread hour he showed the world that the word he 
uttered had become flesh in his own practice. He himself 
could bless them that cursed him and do good to those 
who showed him their hate. He was indeed perfect even 
as the Father in heaven is perfect. His great ideals as 
they stood declared in the body of his teaching had become 
accomplished facts in his own spiritual achievement. 

He instructed and forgave the penitent thief. Helpful- 
ness was his daily, hourly habit. He could not pass through 
a crowded street without having some suffering woman 
touch the hem of his garment for her recovery. He could 
not enter Jericho without picking a sinful man out of the 
crowd, leaving him renewed, a son of Abraham to whose 
heart salvation had come. He could not suffer upon the 
cross without carrying a penitent robber in his arms into 
Paradise. 



528 THE MASTER'S WAY 

44 One of the malefactors railed on him." But one of 
them looked upon him with appeal in his eyes. " Lord, 
remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom." 
When a man whose past life has been evil reaches that 
point of penitent trust where he can say as much as that, 
he is not far from the Kingdom of God. ' In the wild 
storm of obloquy and derision this robber utters one sweet, 
reverent word — Lord. Above the flood of blasphemy 
and execration which dashes round the cross this robber 
lifts his head and acknowledges allegiance to the King! 
To call a dying man a King and to ask him for a favor 
on the other side of death, that is faith indeed." 



He had an inscription placed above his head. There 
was an inscription written in Hebrew and in Latin and in 
Greek, so that all these diverse races and forms of interest 
might read and understand, ' This is the King of the 
Jews." The four Gospels vary in their statements as to 
the exact wording of the inscription, but all agree that it 
contained this statement, " The King of the Jews," as 
indicating the cause of his execution. 

In summoning three of the leading languages of earth 
in that day to bear witness to the royalty of the one who 
hung upon the cross; in summoning three forms of civiliza- 
tion, the Roman with its genius for political administra- 
tion and material development, the Greek with its genuis 
for philosophy and art and the Hebrew with its genius 
for ethics and religion, to confess the Kingship of Jesus, 
they wrote more wisely than they knew. The One who 
hung there in apparent helplessness has become in all 
these lines of human advance the King of kings and Lord 
of lords. 

He was derided by the people and by the chief priests. 
They were powerless to open the eyes of the blind or to 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 529 

unstop the dull ears of the deaf as he had been doing; they 
were unable to preach good tidings to the poor or to bind 
up the broken-hearted or to set at liberty them that were 
bruised. But they could step up and spit upon him as he 
hung helpless under their insults. They could stand off 
and wag their heads, saying, "Ha! he saved others — let 
him save himself! " 

Here are yet other nails driven ruthlessly into his heart 
which even in that awful hour was still throbbing with 
tenderness! He came unto his own and his own made 
this return! He went about doing good and this 
was the measure of their appreciation! He was despised 
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief. 

He made his heartfelt appeal to the Father. " My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? " His words are 
the opening words in the twenty-second Psalm, and we are 
to interpret them in the light of the whole spiritual ut- 
terance to be found in that song of Israel. When President 
McKinley on his deathbed murmured, " Nearer, my God, 
to thee," it was manifest that the whole message of that 
noble hymn was in his mind, yielding its peace and comfort 
in his last hours. 

In like manner we are to think of Christ as having in 
mind the full message and meaning of that ancient Psalm. 
We shall in this way reach a surer interpretation of the 
meaning of this cry than by seeking to inquire how far 
the Father had withdrawn from the Son the sense of his 
gracious presence. 

His enemies even derided that sacred word. " He calleth 
Elijah," they said seeking to perpetrate a rude witticism 
upon the verbal resemblance of his cry, " Eli " (My God), 
and the name of the great prophet. " Let us see whether 



530 THE MASTER'S WAY 

Elijah cometh to take him down." In their sinful eyes 
nothing was revered. 

He yielded up his life with the words, " Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit." He met the tempter in the 
wilderness with words of Scripture on his lips. Now he 
keeps the faith and finishes his course with the word of 
God still upon his lips and in his heart as an abiding source 
of power. 

Let his Cross in its august dignity, in its infinite sim- 
plicity, utter its own great lesson. " Speculation as to the 
relation of the death of Christ to the Deity and to the 
moral order has been common and useless. Salvation is 
as mysterious as the action of the elemental forces. How 
gravitation operates no one knows! How the energy in a 
sunbeam is communicated to a flower no one understands! 
How electricity can be manipulated so that a man may 
hold a pen in Chicago and write his signature in New 
York baffles imagination! And until such facts are ex- 
plained no one need be dazed at the mystery of spiritual 
life. The way of the cross is the way of victory." 



LXXXVIII 
" HE IS RISEN " 
Mark 16 : 1-8; Matt. 28 : 11-15 

The last words in the fifteenth chapter of Mark and the 
first words in the sixteenth are suggestive. " He rolled 
a stone against the door of the tomb and Mary Magda- 
lene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was 
laid." " And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magda- 
lene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought 
spices that they might come and anoint him." The last 
eyes of love to look upon the laying of the Saviour's body 
in the tomb on the evening of what we call " Good Fri- 
day " were the eyes of devoted women. And the first 
approach to the empty tomb on what has become to us 
" Easter Day " was made by devoted women. 

They brought spices to anoint the dead body of him 
whom they had loved. This gracious action revealed their 
affection, but it showed how empty were their hearts of 
faith. The fact of his rising from the dead had yet to be 
established not in minds credulous and anticipant of such 
an event; it had to be established in the minds of those 
who were " slow of heart to believe." 

The women said, as they walked in the uncertain light 
of that early dawn, " Who shall roll away the stone from 
the door of the sepulcher? " The physical obstacle be- 
tween them and the object of their desire seemed to them 
impassable. But they found the stone rolled away. The 
physical obstacles between their heavy hearts and the 
Easter hope of triumphant and advancing life had been 

531 



532 THE MASTER'S WAY 

removed by the might of life itself. "It was not possible 
that he should be holden of death." 

The resurrection of Christ and the whole claim of im- 
mortal life have been overlaid with assertions which tend 
to make it impossible, if not actually grotesque, to many 
discriminating minds. The early church fathers, many of 
them, taught the resurrection of the flesh, insisting upon 
the recovery of the very particles, the hair, the teeth, the 
nails and other specified organs of the body. They made 
themselves unwittingly the enemies of well-reasoned faith. 

"The view now offered is substantially this: the resur- 
rection is from the dead and not from the grave. It takes 
place at death, and is general in the sense of being uni- 
versal. The spiritual body, or the basis of the spiritual 
body, already exists, and this is the body that is raised 
up, God giving it such outward form as please th him." 

We need not concern ourselves with questions touching 
the precise mode of the resurrection of Jesus. " With what 
sort of body did he come? " we are asked. " Could he eat 
and drink in his risen body? " When I had preached a 
sermon on the Easter hope I once received a letter from a 
woman who possessed more of the spirit of inquiry than of 
good sense, asking " Where did Christ get the clothes he 
wore in his risen state? " 

How far beside the mark is all this! W T e may well 
reply, as Bishop Whipple did to a young novitiate who, 
in an ambitious confirmation sermon, had gotten in where 
the water was over his head. The bishop asked the young 
preacher at the close of the service, " What does the Bible 
say about all that? " " It says nothing at all," the young 
man promptly replied. " Then would it not be as well to 
follow so good an example? " 

The silences of Scripture are often as significant as its 
speech. We are not favored with such data as would 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 533 

warrant us in undertaking to build a system of affirma- 
tions touching the mode of Christ's resurrection or the 
particular properties of the " spiritual body." The great, 
abiding, significant fact is that " HE ROSE." He was 
not there in the place of death where the women sought 
him. He was and is and is to be for evermore in the 
realm of life. He is the risen, reigning, triumphant Christ. 
Here is the kernel of our Easter message; all the rest is 
wrapping! 

But intellectual difficulties present themselves at once 
to the serious mind in some such form as this: "What 
can assure the modern man, made aware of the uniformity 
of nature and versed in the history of other religions which 
tell of trances, visions and apparitions, that the story of 
the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth stands unique and 
impregnable, not to be dislodged by scientific assault, not 
to be remanded to the realm of myth and legend? " 

Here are the three main considerations which afford 
me the most assurance: 

The tomb was empty. The dead body was placed there, 
and a guard was set to prevent imposture; but in spite of 
everything, when the third day dawned the body was gone. 
If the body had been there the enemies of the Christian 
cause would have triumphantly produced it as a complete 
and final refutation of the claim, which the apostles began 
*to make at once, that he had risen from the dead. The 
producing of that body, slowly undergoing corruption in 
the tomb, would have put a quietus on the whole move- 
ment. It would have made unnecessary Saul's trip to 
Damascus and all the other desperate efforts to stamp out 
the sect which built squarely upon the claim that Christ 
had risen. But the body was not to be found; the tomb 
was empty. 

We find men who had given up all hope (saying sadly, 



534 THE MASTER'S WAY 

" We trusted that it had been he who should have re- 
deemed Israel," and returning to their fishing), somehow 
changed into triumphant believers. They were trans- 
formed from despondent pessimists, whose dead hopes 
were sealed up in the sepulcher of Joseph of Arimethea, 
into sturdy apostles of a living faith in a risen Lord. 

I have read the labored efforts of men to throw light 
upon this psychological and moral problem — some of 
them made by men who apparently find it easy to believe 
almost anything except the plain statements of the four 
Gospels — and I cannot for myself find any sufficient cause 
for that transformation except the solid, veritable fact that 
Christ rose from the dead and certified this truth to the con- 
sciousness of those doubting men by appearing to them alive. 

We find further confirmation in the blessing of spiritual 
efficacy placed steadily and squarely upon the positive 
rather than upon the negative claim touching the resur- 
rection of our Lord. The men who for centuries have been 
industriously attempting to show that Jesus did not rise 
from the dead have not been able to show in themselves 
or in the feeble following they have gained that measure of 
moral passion, of spiritual energy, of capacity for heroic 
self-sacrifice in the cause of righteousness, which habitually 
attend the preaching of a risen Lord. " Do men gather 
grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? ' : Are the worthiest 
and most enduring moral results the fruitage of illusion 
and falsehood, while spiritual feebleness attends the pro- 
claiming of that which is true? 

When we study the miracles of Jesus it is well to make 
our approach through a previous study of his own person. 
We shall find awakened in our minds a certain anticipa- 
tion that to such a personality as Jesus the great natural 
order which enfolds us may have had a response to make 
altogether unique. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 535 

It is well also to make our approach to a study of the 
narratives of the resurrection through the painstaking study 
of the words, the deeds, the life quality of him concerning 
whom this astonishing claim is made, " Behooved it not 
the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his 
glory? " When we have had opened to us the previous 
records concerning him, and have passed in review the 
record of the unmistakable impress he has made upon the 
higher life of the race in all the centuries since, we find 
our hearts burning within us with a mightier and more 
radiant expectation. 

The problem of personal immortality has another aspect. 
How conscious life can leave the body (with whose cere- 
bral organization it has steadily been associated) to be 
resolved into dust in the slow processes of the cemetery 
or the swifter processes of the crematory, and still maintain 
its conscious self, becomes to certain minds an objection 
insuperable. 

But the sum of all these physical processes does not 
give us the fact of consciousness in the first place. This is 
one of the commonplaces of an accurate psychology. When 
I hold my hand before my eyes and move my fingers I 
am aware that I am observing that which is external to 
my real consciousness. If I have the benefit of the X-ray 
I can watch the movement of the articulations of the wrist 
and hand, I can see the two bones of the forearm and note 
the circulation of the blood in the arteries and veins. 
Suppose I had an X-ray sufficiently powerful to enable me 
to study the atomic changes and molecular movements 
within the brain which accompany the changing moods of 
my inner consciousness as I pass from anger to love or 
from joy to sorrow. In that case as I turned the X-ray 
upon my brain and studied in the mirror these various 
atomic changes and molecular movements, who would be 



536 THE MASTER'S WAY 

doing the watching? Not the brain itself, for the brain is 
the object being observed and reflected upon by the inner 
consciousness. The sum of all the physical processes does 
not give us the fact of consciousness. The personal con- 
sciousness transcends the whole physical framework. 

We can readily believe therefore that the destruction of 
these physical organs and processes does not necessarily 
involve the destruction of personal consciousness. The 
consciousness continues manifesting itself in some new and 
altered form. We have borne the image of the earthy. 
We shall also as conscious living factors in the life of the 
universe bear the image of the heavenly. 

It would be impossible for me to retain my faith in 
God without maintaining also a glad, confident hope of 
immortal life. Let Theodore T. Munger speak on this 
point; his splendid words are, I trow, but an echo of what 
he would say today from that serener height where he now 
walks : 

" Why should love allow the end of what it loves? 
Why should a father rear children till their love for him 
has bloomed into full sweetness, and then dig graves into 
which he thrusts them while their hearts are springing to 
his and his name trembling upon their lips? If death ends 
life, what is this world but an ever-yawning grave in which 
the loving God buries his children with hopeless sorrow, 
mocking at once their love and hope and every attribute 
of his own nature? Divine as well as human love has but 
one symbol in language — forever! " 



LXXXIX 

THE ROAD TO EMMAUS 
Luke 24 : 13-35 

11 The eight miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus have more 
of high and tender humanity in them than any similar 
distance on the face of the earth." There is a simple, 
homespun friendliness in this Easter story. The glory of 
the life eternal walks along a common road where the wind 
blows the dust in its face; it sits at table in a poor man's 
house revealing itself in the breaking of bread. 

The two men who walked that day to the village called 
Emmaus were not apostles like Peter and John, destined 
to have churches innumerable named after them and to 
have their names inscribed on the foundation stones of the 
New Jerusalem. They were just plain people like our- 
selves, who walk and talk, wonder and think, become per- 
plexed and troubled, and are in consequence " sad." And 
the Lord of Life joins these little groups of common people, 
interpreting to them aright the meaning of human exist- 
ence until their hearts burn within them as they behold 
the glory of it. 

Their hearts were heavy and their mood was somber. 
They could not keep the grief they felt out of their faces 
even on the public highway. They were noticeably sad as 
they walked and " communed together." They were mak- 
ing their journey and taking their way into the unknown 
years that lay ahead "in a world with no Christ in it, or 
with only a dead Christ in it." No wonder they were sad! 
All the discouraged and disheartened wayfarers who take 
the road in that mood are (underneath that gay exterior 
they may seek to show) inexpressibly sad. 

537 



538 THE MASTER'S WAY 

"We were hoping," they said — "we were hoping that 
it had been he who should have redeemed Israel, but the 
chief priests and our rulers condemned him to death and 
have crucified him." How our own hearts answer to it 
all! " We were hoping" — fill in the rest of the sentence 
from your own story of disappointment! W T e were hoping 
that these children of ours should have been the chief 
joy of our hearts and the main support of our failing inter- 
est as the day of life should wear toward evening, but 
now — W 7 e were hoping that this high measure of success 
and prosperity to which we have been giving of our best 
strength should be an unfailing source of peace, but now 
evil days have come when we have no pleasure in them 
and the pitcher of our joy is broken at the fountain. 

It is a long, weary, footsore, heavy-hearted procession 
which winds its way from the city of busy activity toward 
some quiet spot like Emmaus, reminiscent, troubled, saddened. 
They are " slow of heart to believe " what the prophets of 
faith have spoken. They are reluctant about recognizing 
the truth that life enters into its glory by the pathway of 
self-sacrifice. Their eyes are holden and they do not see 
what rewarding fellowships are open to them as they travel 
the well-known road of common experience. 

The two men found a certain human relief in talking 
freely with the sympathetic fellow- traveler who " drew 
near and went with them." They recounted the strange 
experiences of the dark days through which they had just 
passed. They brought forth without the least reserve their 
dearest hopes and their profoundest disappointments. 
They spoke of a certain hearsay which had come to them 
touching the possible dawn of a brighter day, but it was 
only the word of " certain women " and might be but the 
eager, unwarranted desire of the more intuitive feminine 
mind. They spoke of an effort made to run down the 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 539 

truth of this report — they had gone to the sepulcher of 
the one they had loved, " but him they saw not." 

There was the key to their whole mood! " Him they 
saw not." The earth is another place when it is seen to 
have a heaven above it. The lives of the children of men 
are transformed when it is known that they have a Heav- 
enly Father behind them. All the roads men travel in 
weariness would be as radiant pathways of light did they 
see the One who appeared that day as the two men neared 
Emmaus. 

When the risen Christ joined them he gave them what 
William H. Strong has called " the threefold assurance." 
He !?ave them " the witness of the hand." " He was known 
of them in the breaking of bread." Some familiar 
gesture as he took the loaf and broke it before the meal 
uttering the common word of thanksgiving revealed him. 
He gave them " the witness of the head." " Beginning at 
Moses he expounded to them in the Scriptures the things 
concerning himself " until their minds saw how natural 
and inevitable it was that the Christ should enter into his 
glory through suffering. He gave them " the witness of 
the heart " as their inmost feeling rose and answered to 
his call when he made his appeal for their trust. " Did 
not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by 
the way and opened to us the Scriptures." 

He gave them food and light and warmth, these three. 
He manifested himself to them in the breaking of bread, 
feeding their wearied strength into newness of vigor so 
that they walked back to Jerusalem that night to tell the 
other disciples what they had seen. He fed their minds 
with a new understanding of the best that had been seen 
and felt and said by their own prophets. The two men 
began to live afresh by the power of great ideas. He fed 
their hearts with that depth and glow of feeling out of 



540 THE MASTER'S WAY 

which come the impulses which carry men along the high 
road of common experience into the richer meaning and 
beauty of earthly existence. Food, light, warmth, these 
three! And the greatest of these is that deep unstudied 
consciousness of well-being resisting all efforts at final 
analysis or formal statement, but experienced by those 
whose lives are hid with Christ in God. 

The hearts of the two men answered to him long before 
their lagging minds had puzzled out the intellectual im- 
plications of that rich and sweet experience. And the 
heart has its rights no less than the head. Alas for us all 
if we had nothing but bodies to eat and drink with as do 
the beasts that perish! And alas for us if we were nothing 
more than the curious gray convolutions which make up 
the human brain with no faculties which transcend the 
operations of an intellectual machine! We are souls, with 
all the full capacities of faith and hope and love, made to 
wear the likeness and image of the Eternal. And when 
our souls burn within us, deep answering to deep, under 
such messages as that which fell that Easter Day from 
the lips of the Lord of Life, may we not boldly trust the 
testimony of this deeper witness to the truth! 

" He was known to them in the breaking of bread." 
He entered upon all those homely experiences that he 
might sympathetically taste the human situation at all 
points for every man. He first " manifested his glory " 
so that his disciples " believed on him " with a firmer, 
richer, warmer faith by making wine for a wedding where 
the refreshments had unexpectedly failed. " This beginning 
of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee." Now at the 
close of his earthly ministry he will make manifest his 
glory and cause his disciples to believe on him in the break- 
ing of bread at the end of their weary walk. 

We value all this, but his supreme appeal is made to 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 541 

the religious consciousness which glows with an unwonted 
radiance at his approach. The One who sets you free 
to aspire for the Highest, the One who causes the noblest 
ideals you ever behold to rise before you like the sun shin- 
ing in his strength, the One who causes your will to leap 
like a strong man coming out of his chamber to run a race, 
this is the Lord whom you confess in the exercise of your 
highest power as the Lord of Life. 

The hearts of the two men were so gladdened by what 
they had experienced along the road that they would re- 
tain the author of their blessings with them at least over 
night. " Abide with us for it is toward evening and the 
day is far spent." They would never have made bold to 
invite Pilate the Roman Governor had he suddenly ap- 
peared on the road to Emmaus. They would never have 
ventured upon an invitation to such an one as Caiaphas, 
who was High Priest that year. The heads of Church and 
State would have frightened the two plain men from any 
such offer of hospitality. 

But the One who from that hour was taking the moral 
government of the world upon his shoulder had shown him- 
self so sympathetic in his familiar contact with their heart's 
needs that they would have him at their table. " And 
he went in to tarry with them and sat at meat with them 
and took bread and blessed it and brake and gave to 
them." He was made flesh and went about among men 
full of grace and truth. 

11 As that day was, so may each life be," is the prayer 
of Dr. George A. Gordon. " The morning heaviness, the 
walk and the human relief, the divine companion and 
interpretation, the full and mighty answer of the heart, the 
evening with the risen Christ standing in its reddening 
glow and peace — such were the supreme things in that 
great day." 



:c 

THE GREAT COMMISSI-! 

Matt. 28 : 16-20; Luke 24 : 36A9 

' The eleven — how full of painful remi ni scence and 
suggestion is the sound of this strange number now ap- 
plied to the company of disciples! ' The eleven disciples 
went into Galilee unto the mountain where Jesus had 
appointed them. And when they saw him, they wor- 
shiped him — but some doubted.'' It was in the face of 
a reluctant, questioning mood that the risen Lord estab- 
lished the truth of his claims. There in little insignificant 
Galilee with that magnificent reference to the authority 
given him in heaven and on earth, he commissioned his 
faithful followers for the wider service. 

" Go ye into all the world." he said. He had r. 
real, traveled abroad. In his infancy we are told that 
had been carried once across the borders of Egypt. 
In his ministry he had once crossed the boundary into 
Phoenicia. But his life was spent and his work was done 
in a country- smaller than the state of New Hampshire. 
Yet he had " the world view " of which John R. Mott 
speaks so often and so well. He lived " in the vision and 
ice of great ideals 

" Go ye into all the world.'" The One who is more 
widely known than any other in history is speaking here. 
He is planning an enterpr rid-wide in its scope. He 

is thinking of that day when all the nations of earth 
which really count will be dating their history and their 
ndence. their contracts and their daily papers, from 

5 . 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 543 

the day of his birth. " 1917," we write it now every 
day in the week. It is that long since he was born in 
Bethlehem. 

He was so tall when he stood up that he could see a long 
way off. He makes his plans in seven figures, as one might 
say — he seems to think more readily in millions than in 
dimes. " Disciple all nations," he said. " Repentance and 
remission of sins shall be preached in my name unto all 
the nations." 

" Beginning at Jerusalem! " Begin where you are! 
The place to begin this world-wide, age-long enterprise 
was right where they stood. Go into all the world finally 
but begin here. The place to inaugurate any great move- 
ment, even though it is to clasp the whole round world in 
its beneficent embrace and move in majestic fashion down 
the ages, is not away yonder somewhere in the distance, 
but right here where a finer spirit of fidelity and consecra- 
tion may enter at once upon its glorious career. 

How faithfully the disciples observed this counsel! When 
the command came, " Go ye into all the world," they did 
not begin by sending one man to the north on a camel and 
another to the south with his donkey and having another 
take ship to sail west. They gathered the believers who 
were within reach — only a dozen or so of them at first it 
seems from the narrative — and went into an upper room 
to hold a prayer meeting. 

This little company of believers who were " beginning 
at Jerusalem " continued in prayer and supplication in one 
place, with one mind and one accord, for days. When the 
right moment came the spokesman of the group, whose 
name was Peter, stood up and voiced their conviction and 
their aspiration in a notable sermon. Then came the out- 
pouring of the Spirit from heaven and a great response 
from the people. It resulted in that glorious ingathering 



544 THE MASTER'S WAY 

on the day of Pentecost. Many were added to the Lord 
because they were being saved and the world-wide move- 
ment we call " Christianity " was under way. It began 
right because those men started in where they were in 
the city of Jerusalem. 

The religion of Christ, according to our faith, is the 
final and absolute religion. It is religion universal coming 
to clear self-consciousness and to effective vigor first in 
that nation providentially prepared for it and then in all 
the nations embraced within its missionary activity. It 
shows itself competent to offer satisfaction for the moral 
aspirations of those who are near and of those afar off. 
It asserts its unique and superior claims, not by crushing 
or denying the worth of all other religious movements; it 
follows rather the method of its Master in that it finds 
room within its sympathy for all the yearnings and dis- 
coveries of those non-Christian faiths and then rejoices to 
supplement their incompleteness. It comes not to destroy 
but to fulfil. 

The uniqueness of the religion of Christ which underlies 
our world-wide missionary effort is no mere dogmatic as- 
sertion springing from mere pride in our own faith. It 
can be well sustained by thorough, competent study in com- 
parative religion. There are three distinctive characteris- 
tics of our Christian gospel resting for their final warrant 
upon the revelation God made of himself in Jesus Christ. 

First, the perfection of its ethical conception of God with 
the revelation of the divine in Jesus Christ as a historical 
basis for its thought. The hideous idols with their gro- 
tesque faces reveal the tendency of rude men to worship 
that which is seen to be non-human. The gigantic images 
of Babylon and Assyria, the huge figures of Buddha in 
Japan and the pantheistic identification of the material 
universe itself with God, all testify that multitudes of 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 545 

men have been moved to prostrate themselves before that 
which was simply colossal. The Moslem worship of Allah 
seen as " Absolute Will," but in such hardness and isola- 
tion as to lack the qualities necessary for moral perfection, 
illustrates the adoration of sheer Force. Jesus rendered 
the race his most conspicuous service in that he shewed us 
" The Father." " To us there is but one God, the Father." 

In the second place the conception of salvation as the 
complete enrichment and perfecting of human personality 
with the life of Jesus as a historical basis embodying this 
perfection. The ascetic idea of salvation as the deliver- 
ance of a certain section of the life from evil at the expense 
of other normal interests prudently sacrificed to the greater 
good, no longer stands. Ye therefore shall be perfect, 
round, entire, even as your Father in heaven is entire. 
The Christian offer of salvation insures a moral personality 
ennobled and enriched according to the measure of the 
stature of full manhood in Christ Jesus. 

And finally the hope and confidence in the work of 
establishing the perfect Kingdom of God upon earth with 
the words of Jesus and the record of human redemption 
accomplished through him thus far as a historical basis 
for such confidence. The words, " Thy kingdom come," 
addressed to the Eternal God in firm expectation that at 
last they will not be left unanswered indicate no paring 
down of the world's evil to more respectable proportions, 
no easy compromise with the passions of men — they 
anticipate the transformation of this earthly life until 
through the complete sway of the divine Spirit it has be- 
come indeed the Father's perfect Kingdom. 

The importance of sound and reasonable convictions 
as to the unique character and the absoluteness of the 
religion of Jesus can scarcely be overstated. It is not 
enough that our acceptance of Christianity should rest on 



THE : [ASTEI AY 

the accident of birth or the happy fortune of early train- 
ing; it should stand also upon that intelligent comparison 
and rational selection which having proved all things holds 
fast that which is good, supremely good. U its ponents 
are to go forth to victorious effort among the non- Christian 
races they must be re-enforced by an inwrought convic- 
tion that they bear with them the supreme word of God to 
man. They must go as confident ambassadors, certain 
that the moral government of the world is to be upon the 
shoulder of him whom they proclaim. 

When the returns are all in from an exhaus: study of 
comparative religion, the hard fact stands that the d 
tian religion alone is furnishing the necessary moral im- 
petus for a steadily advancing civilization. Its ability : 
render this service springs from the strength and the 
breadth of its convictions and from the sense of di 
helpfulness in which it enables the believer to stand. 
And these convictions are no mere dream of some brighter 
hour — they rest back upon the words, the life and the 
subsequent spiritual achievements of Jesus Christ as a 
sufficient historical basis. 

What a changed attitude has come toward the whole 
work of foreign missions within the last ten years. The 
testimony of Christian statesmen like Sir Edward Grey 
and William H. Taft to the power of the missionary in 
solving problems of state among backward peoples; the 
founding of well-equipped departments of missionary train- 
ing in connection with the great universities and theologi- 
cal schools; the enlistment of men of first-rate capacity, 
lay and clerical, for the furtherance of the missionary 
enterprises of the churches; the magnificent enrollment of 
the choicest young men and young women from the col- 
leges and universities by the Student Volunteer Movement 
— all these testify to the larger place which the great com- 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 547 

mission, " Go ye into all the world," has today in the 
thought of Christendom. 

Come! Follow! Abide! Go! These four crucial words 
from the lips of the Master indicate the order of experi- 
ence and of procedure for his disciples. They had for 
three years been followers — now they were to be leaders 
in spiritual effort. 

And the essential method is also here indicated. " Ye 
shall be witnesses." They were to be not poets nor philoso- 
phers nor scientists nor even orators, but witnesses to what 
they had seen and heard and felt of the divine glory 
manifesting itself in the spiritual recovery of men. In 
that high mood bearing their testimony they went forth 
as participants in a movement universal in its scope and 
enduring as time. 



XCI 
" HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN " 

Luke 24 : 50-53; Acts 1 : 1-11 

Here is the last scene in the earthly history of our 
Lord! He has held his last conference with his disciples. 
He has placed in their hands and upon their hearts the 
great commission. He is now to be parted from them. 

Where does he go for this tender, significant farewell? 
Not to Bethlehem, where he was born, nor to Nazareth, 
where he grew up. Not to Mt. Hernon, where he was 
transfigured before them, nor to Calvary, where he suf- 
fered on their behalf. " He led them out as far as Bethany 
and blessed them; and while he blessed them he was 
parted from them and carried up into heaven." He goes 
to Bethany, where the home was — the home of Mary, 
Martha and Lazarus, the home which had sheltered and 
comforted him in those weary days when he had nowhere 
to lay his head. 

How he honored the home, the earliest, the simplest, 
the most fundamental of all our human institutions! 
His first miracle was wrought in a home, at a wedding in 
Cana of Galilee. He framed the main essentials of his 
teachings in the language of the home. When we pray we 
say, " Our Father." Repentance is the act of a homesick 
soul saying in the far country of evildoing, " I will arise 
and go to my Father." Men enter the Kingdom by 
" becoming as little children." The sense of duty is the 
feeling that one must be about his Father's business. 
Heaven is " My Father's house " where the many mansions 
offer room for all the Father's children. 

548 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 549 

The atmosphere of that home on the slopes of Olivet has 
made the very name of " Bethany " as sweet as a psalm. 
" On the preservation of the home depends the safety of 
the republic," said one of our wisest statesmen recently. 
" Citizenship and character are murdered in the tenements 
for the lack of homes," said Jacob Riis. The Christian 
life goes down in defeat in many a soul, say all the relig- 
ious leaders, for the lack of a home atmosphere making 
possible its normal growth. 

Men have gone to battle in all the centuries " for their 
homes and firesides." It remains to be seen what they 
will do for the sake of a hot air register in a boarding 
house or the steam radiator in an apartment hotel for 
bachelors. It is certain, however, that already the decay 
of home life in our great cities has been to the detriment 
of all those vital forces which make for social progress. 

There at Bethany where the home was we read that 
" a cloud received him out of their sight." The cloud has 
remained. We may ask a host of questions and find our- 
selves groping in the mist. " How did he rise? To what 
height was he visible? Where did his body go? What 
became of his garments? " The writers of the New Testa- 
ment did not undertake to answer any of these questions. 
They personally sought to withdraw the attention of men 
from this mysterious event and fix it upon the spiritual 
activities of the apostles who set about the establishment 
of the Kingdom of Christ on earth. 

" Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? ' It was a 
natural attitude — their eyes were on Christ. He was the 
supreme object of their interest and affection — why 
should they not stand gazing upon him whenever op- 
portunity offered? 

But the time had come for an advance. This was to 
be Ascension Day in their spiritual history. And when 



550 THE MASTER'S WAY 

we speak of " ascension," we use language in its popular 
rather than in its scientific sense. There is really no 
' up " or " down " in this wide, roomy universe where we 
find ourselves. If you went from here to the moon which 
you saw shining overhead last night, you might call it 
11 going up to the moon." But when you reached the moon 
and looked back, you would not be looking down. There, 
hanging above you in your sky, would be the huge bulk 
of this old earth. There is no absolute " up " or " down." 

When we speak of " the ascension of Christ," therefore 
we do not mean that he went up and up and up, until at 
last he arrived, no one knows where. We mean that he 
withdrew his visible, local, tangible presence from the eyes 
of men. He went into that unseen world of spiritual forces 
which are everywhere and forever effective. 

The ministry of Jesus was brief — it was contained in 
only three short years. His entire earthly career covered 
only three and thirty years — the thirty years lost in ob- 
scurity except for one glimpse of him at his birth and 
another glimpse when he was taken as a boy to the Temple. 
It was never intended that somewhere on earth there 
should be permanently a local visible presence on which 
men might gaze as forty centuries have gazed upon the 
Pyramids. He walked among us for a brief hour, showing 
us his face of moral interest, reaching out his hand of 
fellowship, tasting the human situation for every man, and 
then he was gone. He had withdrawn into that unseen 
world which is eternal. 

His ascension therefore meant the lifting of his principles, 
his attitudes, his spiritual energies into a world of perma- 
nence where they could be seen with the eye of faith and 
enjoyed by the responsive soul through all the years to 
come. It meant the exaltation of that local presence into 
a universal presence capable of realization anywhere. 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 551 

Wherever two or three of his friends are sympathetically 
agreed upon the accomplishment of the high ends he had in 
view, there he is manifest in their midst. 

His disciples at Bethany became eye-witnesses of the 
beginning of that vast process. There gazing into heaven 
they saw the inception of that mighty movement of thought 
and feeling which would at last disciple all nations baptiz- 
ing them into all the divine helpfulness of Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit. 

"As ye have seen him go, so in like manner ye shall see 
him come." When? Within a few days. The disciples 
who heard these words went into an upper room and 
prayed until they were all rilled with the Spirit that was in 
him. They went out and began to speak with other 
tongues and with new effectiveness — it had never been 
like this with them before. Men of all lands gathered at 
Jerusalem heard them speak, each one in his own tongue, 
the message of eternal life. Without leaving the city the 
disciples were already going into all the world with the 
gospel and were conscious that he was with them always in 
that blessed work. 

When Jesus walked in visible form in Palestine it was 
inevitable that Christian interest should be localized. 
His disciples would feel that where he was, the divine 
presence could best be realized. " When they were in 
his visible presence, they felt themselves nearer to him 
than when they were away — they could not help it." 
His ascension would mean the transfer of their interest 
from a local, visible presence to a universal, invisible 
presence to be enjoyed everywhere. 

" It could not be that living among men he should just 
live on forever, never allowing his ministry to pass beyond 
the imperfection of the visible, always drawing the hosts 
of believers to Jerusalem, in place of lifting them up to 



552 THE MASTER'S WAY 

his spiritual home in holiness. So there came a disap- 
pearance which was not death — a disappearance strange 
and mysterious but not more wonderful than had been the 
life and character of him who so departed." 

It helped the disciples to believe. When Jesus was sit- 
ting in some narrow room or standing in the Temple at 
Jerusalem, it seemed a thing incredible that he should say, 
"All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." 
Hedged in by the limitations of an earthly life and resi- 
dence, it might seem unwarranted boasting for him to say, 
11 Go ye and make disciples of all nations." But here 
under God's vast sky, when they saw him rising before 
their eyes into the infinite space of heaven, their vision 
cleared and broadened; their faith grew firm and glad. 

Why, then, stand ye gazing at this wonder? The time 
soon passes for the silent, passive contemplation of the 
great mysteries of human experience. The time comes for 
the translation of these rapt visions of ours into deeds. 
The dream, if it be worth having, must begin to come true 
in some worthy achievement. The privilege of looking into 
the face of the Master must bring new impulse for doing 
what he would have us do. If you have seen the Lord 
Christ high and lifted up, if you have heard his voice, if 
you understand in some measure his great wish for human 
society, then the hour has struck for you to cease gazing 
upon those sublime verities in wonder and amazement — 
the hour has struck for you to work them out in actual 
life. 

It required an angel, the narrative says, to give a dif- 
ferent tilt to the faces of those disciples, to change them 
from the attitude where they gazed into the sky, into an 
attitude where they gave attention to the spiritual needs of 
the people about them. In our day when a profound 
intellectual interest is felt in everything in heaven above 



THE LIFE ETERNAL 553 

and on the earth beneath and in the waters under the 
earth, it will take a legion of angels to transform all the 
gazers into doers. How deeply interested we are in our 
problems! How slow we are ofttimes in taking hold to 
solve them! 

If you would really know him, make it the aim of your 
life to translate the vision of an ascended Christ into the 
experience of an Effective Christ as he works within you to 
accomplish his good pleasure. Stand not forever gazing 
at the sanctities of worship, at the perplexing mysteries of 
religious truth, at the difficulties in the way of realizing 
his vast ideals, but take hold somewhere, putting into 
operation the impulse you gain from looking upon his face. 







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